veneer hammers

C

Chris J

Member
I'm preparing to make a veneer hammer and have seen several variations of heads: solid cast iron, steel insert, brass inserts, UHMW plastic inserts, solid wood.

As my experience with a veneer hammer consists of picking one up at the cabinet shop in Colonial Williamsburg and saying "hmmm, interesting" to myself, anyone have pros and cons that would help my decision in choosing material? 
 
Chris-
It doesn't really matter. I use an old iron one, a friend makes his from maple with a brass edge. As long as the edge is straight and you can clean the glue off it when you're done, it doesn't matter. It's really just a squeegee to squeeze the glue out; it doesn't need to get hot to do the job, so I think plastic edges would work.-Al
 
Chris, Allan is right, I work extensively with hammer veneering and as Allan mentioned the hammer is used as a tool to apply pressure to the veneer in order to both press the veneer into the glue and to also move excess glue from both sides of the veneer.  The only thing I can add is make sure you keep the hammer clean as I have seen stains resulting from dirty or corroded hammers.  This is probably in most cases easy to solve but if you start clean staining is one thing you don't have to keep track of as you develop your hammer veneering skills!  Have fun, you'll find that Tage Frid was right when he said "with enough glue and veneer I could veneer the world without a single clamp!"
C J Struthers
 
I prefer one with a brass head. Mine is made from a piece of 1/4" thick stock. The reason I prefer this is because of a trick Steve Latta showed me.

If you keep the brass face of the hammer on a coffee cup warmer, it keeps the head hot. And whenthe head is hot, the glue on the hammer just drips off,keeping the head clean as you work. Also when you wipe it off the glue comes right off with no residue. And if there is a small area that needs to be reheated a little, the head can do it.
 
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