Fredeen Blades

Right now I'm using a 4lb stanley hammer for all of my forging becuse it's the only resonably sized hammer I have, but it does not have a flat face so when I forge a blade I am forced to grind off a lot of material in order to get rid of the deep indentations that are left by the curvature on the hammer face. So my question is this, is there some way I can sort of compensate for the curve in the hammer face, or would it be best if I were to just buy another hammer? 

When it comes to hammers, one is usually never enough. For standard forging a 4 lb hammer is pretty heavy. It will be hard to get good hammer control with a 4 lb hammer. I do most of my forging with a 2lb ball pein, and then step down to a 24 oz ball pein for finer control in the final shaping stages, and then sometimes I will step down into a planishing auto body hammer for the final touches (depending on how picky I am at the moment). I'll only use a large hammer like a 4 lber to break down large and thick stock into a more managable size. I think you'll find you will have much better control with a smaller hammer when forging a blade to shape, and get better results.

Now as to having a hammer with an improperly shaped face for what you want to do with it, don't hesitate to take it to the grinder and dress the face of it to fit your needs. If the face is too round, flatten it out, if the corners are two sharp, bevel and round them back, etc. A nice "polished" face on a hammer is also nice as it wont leave any of the fine pitting/texture in the surface of the steel that a beat up hammer with a rough face will (same goes for the anvil), but this is not as crucial to blade finish as hammer control and using the right hammer for the job. Generally you'll want a slight dome in the face of your forging hammers (even the "flat" ones), and you'll definately want to round over the corners so you don't get the nasty dings from them.

You should be able to find hammers pretty cheap at yard/grage sales, flea markets, or even pawn shops. It doesnt matter if the face is a bit rough or if they are rusty or a bit abused and neglected, you'll dress the faces to fit your needs anyway. And hammers can be rehandled pretty easily as well, so if you find a nice head that needs a new handle, might be worth getting if the price is right. 

I'll probably go ahead and get a lighter hammer, but for now I'm just going to try flattening the the face of my stanley. BTW The belts were supposed to be here two days ago. I paid for faster shipping 2-3 days, this is the fifth day and still no cigar.   

Thats a bit strange with the belts. I assume you recieved a notice saying they shipped?

If thats the case and they gave you the expected delivery date and its late, given you paid extra for the faster shipping, you might have to contact the shipping company and see what the hold up is, and I'd probably want some money back considering they failed to deliever in the time frame you paid for.

I've never spent money on the faster shipping, seems like a bit of a waste to me. The "slow" shipping will sometimes be quoted at 10 business days or whatever it may be, but I've never really had to wait more than 5 days for any of my packages with the "standard" shipping, and from the sounds of what you are going through at the moment, why should you pay for fast shipping only to have it come in on the exact same truck as all the "standard" shipped packages.

I didn't receive a conformation E-mail, but the money was taken out of the bank. I sent them an E-mail asking what the hold up is a few hours ago but haven't gotten any response. If by tomorrow they don't respond I'm going to give them a call.

What company did you order from?

Most usually send out a notice when they ship the order (often including a tracking number). If they didn't send this, its possible that they havent shipped the order yet, possibly because of stock issues or something and have to wait in order to fill the order.

I thought this was an issue with the shipping carrier(could still be, but could also be on the company), in which case you should get some money back from them (be it FedEx, UPS, etc) if you paid for faster and they didn't deliver. Unfortunately if its a shipping delay from the belt supplier due to availablity in stock, all you can really do is wait unfortunately.

Either way, hope you get your belts soon, as I'm sure your anxious to get them and get grinding. 

I ordered the belts from USA knife maker supply.

     I gave them a call yesterday and apparently there was something wrong with their computer on the day that I ordered my belts, so they never even got my order in the first place. On a better note all of my money was quickly refunded and I ordered again. Now the belts are actually on their way, while I’m waiting AGAIN I plan to forge an rr spike knife, If it turns out looking half decent I'll try to post some pictures.

Sounds good. Glad you got the belt situation under control.

I've never orderd from Tracey Mickley (USA knifemaker supply), but from those I have talked to, he sounds like he runs a good operation.

I might have to look into some of those cork belts he has sometime...

I got my belts in the mail yesterday, and they threw in an extra belt for the inconvenience. I really like the speed at which they cut.  I'm going to really put them to work as soon as my schedual will allow.