Adam Savage's One Day Builds: Little Thwacker Hammer!

hey guys Adam Savage here with another one-day bunker build in my cave now obviously I love tools look around me I am nothing but existing right now in a palace of tools but when I wrote a book about making I mentioned one tool in the title and that's a hammer which is sort of like the most proto-tool of proto tools I mean seriously the like using a rock to hammer a stick into the ground it's probably one of the very first human making endeavors in the third season of Mythbusters I actually made a crew gift that was a hammer for everyone this is a design based on a steamfitters hammer that jamie hyneman had around the shop i in case harden piece of two-inch steel bar welded to a knurled handle I call this the convinced ER and when I released my line of tools this will be the first tool I release but you don't always need such a big hammer in fact when I was a model maker at ILM I noticed a need for a kind of a small hammer with a little bit of substance to it so I made one I took a piece of inch-and-a-half aluminum and made a little round head for it and carved a wooden handle for it and it was a trusty companion in my shop for years but recently I had a need for it and I couldn't find it I've been doing a lot of mill work lately and in mill work you clamp stuff into a vise and when you are when you put your object on the parallels in the mill vise and you're about to tighten the vise it's a good idea to be tapping on the object so it's setting really hard against the parallels as you're doing it that just means that all your stuff is really high and I was looking for the aluminum tracker because every other hand was a little too big or gangly or different and I I just I wanted that that old familiar that old familiar face and I couldn't find it so today I'm gonna replace my little slacker with a new one except instead of aluminum I'm going to use some brass because it's got a little more weight to it and I feel like it'll weather a little better and I got piece of wood I think upon the wood rack so let's get started making a one-day little Flecker built alright I found my piece of wood this is a piece of koa I know because I wrote koa on it I bought this on eBay a few months ago and I think it'll be an absolutely perfect material for the handle of my sweater I think for brass I think this right here is actually gonna be the perfect thing let's see this is a inch and a half this is let's see here this is inch and a half diameter brass I'm just going to cut off a probably about two inches of it to make the head of my sweater and then I'm gonna cut a hole in the top I'm going to machine it as an oblong hole not a round hole so the head won't spin on the wooden handle and then I'm going to carve the interface of the handle on the hammer I have to make a little wedgie poo that sticks in the top that helps hold the two together and then I will design the handle itself and carve that out of wood seems pretty straightforward let's find out what problems we can invent on the way shall we I'm looking at this hammer for reference because this is one of the most beautiful hammers I own take a look at this thing it is such a beautiful little this is definitely a little whack er yeah it is gorgeous I believe this is made for a jeweler I picked it up on eBay for 20 bucks I just happen to see that beautiful head look at that thing that is just gorgeous what a lovely piece anyway I really like the feel of this hammer and so I'm going to try and kind of replicate that feel I think I'm gonna I think I'm gonna go with the same kind of long thin stalk out to a out to a wider handle yeah let's try that so I want to cut yeah I think I'll cut straight all right I've got my wood blank I've got my brass blank and because the shape of the wood handle will depend upon the the size of the of the head I'm going to machine the brass head first so time for some lathe work I'm using uh I want to drill a hole in the center of this bar this way and this way so I'm going to be using a center finder to do it and this is a piece of equipment actually a little more visible for you this is a piece of equipment that is a steel ball mounted to the end of a stalk with a light and when you bring this thing down and it touches the work the light goes on boom and that light going on or off tells me within less than a thousandth of an inch where I am on the piece so I bring this over here so just as it touches zero out and then I move it by exactly one half of its distance and given that this is exactly one and a half inches in diameter I move exactly three quarters of an inch to get my Center 0.75 now I'm going to go to the end I measure that that's it okay okay so that should be my ever loved and dead center on top of this I'm now set up there we go I'm set up right in the center so back out the center finder and it's call it let's just make sure the no center or if I need it later I can get it now I want this to be an oblong hole and I've got this beautiful long quarter is bit so I think I'm gonna utilize that you know I think I want to create a kind of a wide hole like that so I'm gonna drill on two separate centers that Center and that Center and since that's the middle of my work I got to do a little math to figure out what I want to go with this let's see cool so I move one two five in each direction okay Center drum comes back we're gonna move 0.125 I'm using a two flute collet which should allowed me to go in okay so if I do put went to five let's no no no that's not right it's half of that it's 2006 25 yep there we go I was getting my math wrong okay here we go slowly okay machinists of Twitter I know that that is not the most accurate way to bore a hole right through the side of a cylinder I am NOT killing myself about accuracy on this specifically because I'm about to bury a piece of wood all the way in there and use a wedge to hold it in so I'm being a little more loosey-goosey than I normally would be for such a thing so I'm recognizing that the long bit for pouring that isn't the best way to get a perfectly straight hole right through the center of a cylinder I'm going to use my new die filer to actually get this puppy file up I'm very excited about that oh really there we go all right got my piece of brass with the hole cut in it I'm pretty pleased with it so now I'm going to engineer my piece of koa so it fits in there nice and tight and then I'm going to carve the handle out of koa and then I'm going to do the final spit and polish on the head and bring the two together to the bandsaw all right now I've got a little stock sticking up it's time to soften the edges and make it match the profile of the inside that I drilled out of the Hammerhead but you can't see it there I feel good about that time to get this shaping all right so here's my little stalk I know it's not perfectly beautiful but it's in line with the grain of the wood and should make it nice little go a handle by the time I'm all done okay all right now sort of assess the shape of this thing yeah like that so I think all right I think that's the shape and if you can see that let's cut it out now this is where we do some belt sanding work yeah now I like using light to actually see my contours it's a good final path to make to make sure you don't have any weird angles make sure you have the kind of uniform shape you were going for this is all just the first pass at sanding yeah it's pretty good pretty good all right yeah yeah it's a lot of sanding but that's kind of the point also I'm using some machine tools and some of my bigger tools but this is not a project that requires anything refined in terms of equipment you could make this hammer head from a piece of metal stock you buy on eBay and you can cut it with a hacksaw and file it and it would only take a little bit longer than the way I'm doing it here this is a terrific project for just sort of really getting into the kind of feel you want out of your stuff I can feel I am really really close here and I'm about to do some staining I'm about to make this handle nice and dark that's the next step I've got some dark what is this dark walnut stain that's what I wanted to go for yeah put the stain on and let it sit for a minute and then we'll wipe it back off nice see little slacker oh it's beautiful absolutely gorgeous oh look at that such great color such great texture all right I think it's time to finish the Hammerhead on the lake I had this idea I wanted to give angles to these two ends of the head and I think I really do want to do that but the question is how much of an angle and I think my answer is like five degrees really not much at all let's give it four now see that little slacker it's actually why I love these bond hoose tea handled Allen wrenches because they make effective little little hammers so I'm going to I'm going to use my cross slide for this angle and then I'm gonna change it to five degrees in the other direction and see how I like it all right hey let's go in the other direction all right now it's time to remove the tool marks from either end of this and final finishing I'm really pleased with the overall finish a final finishing on a piece of scotch brite scotch pad here I want to get that kind of worked in texture it's a beautiful object alright so there's the barrel head of our little slacker five degree angles I know I know that these two aren't centered according to this and that's a mistake I made but you know what that's something I live with with my swagger for the rest of my life yeah all right so now I have the handle I have the head now it's time to join the two together and to do that I need to put this in their pot it with a little bit of glue and then I need to put a little wedge in there and pop it in so a wedge is I got a draw let me get a pen so I need to take a piece of steel that's about like this where this distance is 0.25 inches give or take and this is maybe what like five eighths of an inch down to here yes so this is a piece of steel that is a piece of steel and I need to make it about a quarter inch wide about 5/8 inch long and probably you know 0.125 like an eighth of an inch or even less thick and then I'm going to join these two together pop that wedge in and we'll have a little tracker all right I got a little washer here which I like I'm gonna cut a slice out of it I'm gonna cut like a piece like that out of it and that'll be my wedge bring over my Porta band there it is all right where'd the little piece go yeah where'd the little piece go I got the piece out of here and it's not on the ground oh oh oh there it is all right that's gonna end up being my out that's hot that's gonna end up being my wedge for the end of my hammer time for assembly so to not get glue anywhere I don't want glue I know I should use epoxy just set this but to be honest I'm gonna use a crow cyanoacrylate curling face crazy glue is what you would note as I'm gonna use some Krazy Glue for this because I'm impatient and I don't want to wait the seven or eight minutes yep that's that's that's my that's my thing I'm super impatient this goes in yeah that's okay oh great that is a nice positive seat and I forgot to put glue in these things happen ah now we know they go together and they're hard to get apart which is good all right let's get a little uh let's get a little glue in there to fill out the equation yes to fill all the voids that would otherwise be there yeah at the same time don't drip on me ok ladies and germs that is a seat and I'm letting the glue sort of settle in there peel some off here hey and we'll get the tape off make sure that any glue that's sitting there is not slowly gluing the tape to the wood and get some cyanoacrylate kicker in there yeah yes now I've got to get this wedge in there so I'm gonna do this I think I'm gonna do it oh you got to see that okay you want to do it like this with some needle nose pliers and a little slacker gotta go find the tiny little thing ah found it okay so now it's started yes all right let's file that clean fascinating development here I was just doing a little bit of a final thing and I dropped the hammer and I did that classic classic okay so I have two options I can remake the handle or I can excited Oh acrylate the handle and then wrap some wire all the way down and I think that's the second thing that's what I'm gonna try to do I'm always interested in rescuing a bill rather than starting it from scratch if I can if I can't however then I can let's see if I can see if I did it I also gave it a finish of cyanoacrylate this is a woodworkers trick it's a very hard fast finish perhaps you shouldn't use zip kicker for it I'm gonna give it a shot again I am mr. impatience all right all right so there we have it that was a quick fix feels look you know what you know if I wrap something there so I'm gonna make it any stronger so what this is now is this is a little thwack er this is a little thwack ER for just place and stuff you know just a little bit of a yeah just a little and maybe a little yeah it's for like setting your setting your optical center or doing some layout I may eventually have to remake the handle of this I really like the shape of the head that barrel shape I think it's really lovely it feels good feels good in my hand oh hey let's try it out in the milk all right here's how this goes you take a pair of parallels pop them in your vise piece of metal you want to operate on sits on those parallels and you could just close the vise but what you do is you get it like just ever so there we go that that right there that's a nice little Frakker I'm very pleased so there you have it a little thwack er an easy build almost no matter what kind of tools you have access to it can be as fancy or as simple as you want to get you might want to make a slightly thicker handle than I did because I messed up a little bit but with a dark walnut finish on some koa wood and a cyanoacrylate acrylic coating little wedge in the end there this mmm this is gonna live with the mill for years thanks so much for joining me this one day bill this is Adam Savage protested I am signing out

Channel: Adam Savage’s Tested

Views: 787,004

Rating: 4.9073625 out of 5

Keywords: tested, adam savage, one day builds, one day build, adam savage one day build, adam savages one day builds, how to, adam savage tested, tested adam savage one day build, inside adam savages cave, workshop ideas, tool organization ideas, workshop organization tips, shop organization project, lathe, mill, chuck, woodworking, adam savage builds, tested one day builds, adam savage one day builds, hammer, thwacker, milling, mallet, how to make a hammer handle, diy hammer handle

Id: yWRLz_r_d3A

Length: 33min 31sec (2011 seconds)

Published: Wed Apr 29 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/catbo]

kinda shocked that handle lasted as long as it did tbh

[u/dudeguychill]

The handle snapping was one of those relatable shop moments of extreme hindsight. Fun video enjoyed it.

[u/Antilon]

Yeah, the second he started shaping his handle I was very confused. I thought he was going to thread a metal rod down the middle or something.