Making The World's Nicest Cobbler's Hammer

ladies and gentlemen welcome back to the workshop in today's episode we're going to be building the world's nicest cobbler's hammer and then we'll be taking a trip to go and resole my favorite boots well as most of you guys know hammers are the things that we usually use to hit other things with they've generally got a metal head and a wooden handle and they all have a very specific use this is a sledgehammer you use it for hitting things really hard i've got my alex steelco forging hammer i've got a will stelter original it's actually the only hammer i've ever made so far forging cross p a jake ferrum straight pink i've got my ball beam hammers for doing little stuff i've got another little rounding hammer for other knife making stuff and even this tiny little japanese engravers hammer so hammers have been around for believe it or not quite some time now the reason that i'm choosing today to make a cobbler's hammer is because as some of you guys know there are still people who will sit down take some leather take some other boot materials and make themselves a pair of boots or make pairs of boots by hand for other people as such is the case of my good friends over at nyx boots who just so happen to be today's sponsor and so the plan is to fire up the forge work up ourselves a nice big old billet of damascus and turn that thing into a sweet world's nicest cobbler's hammer the first step is to create our billet of damascus we do this by stacking our two different steels and welding them together after they're tack welded together i'll take it into the grinding room and clean up the mig welds off the side of the stack now before i put in the forge i spray on some wd-40 it soaks between the layers and when it burns up it turns to a layer of pure carbon that helps protect the steel while it heats up with our billet in the fire it's time to go sketch up what we want our hammer to look like based off of these photos that nick's boots sent me [Music] [Applause] um [Music] [Music] um [Music] [Music] now that i've completed my first forage weld i'm going to cut it up into five pieces and restack it then forge weld it back together once again let's go ahead and see what this looks like that's a nice looking w so here we've got our c shape and we'll have five layers of those stacked up to make our w [Music] [Music] [Music] now that the final billet has been forged i'm going to twist the bar to add a little extra spice into the pattern twisting the bar allows the end grain of the pattern to be brought to the surface when you grind into it in a mysterious way that nobody really understands [Music] [Music] [Music] with the pattern complete it's now time to punch the eye of the hammer by hand forge out the cross beam and drift the eye to shape [Music] [Music] [Music] that's so clean the next step is to temper the hammerhead this softens it a little bit so it won't crack when we're actually using the hammer and we've got ourselves a tempered hammer the temper cycle went well which means i can clean it up in the grinding room and get started on the handle [Music] now the handle material i chose is coco cocobolo because it's dang good looking and plenty strong to hold up to daily use in the shoe shop [Music] because this is the world's nicest cobbler's hammer a normal handle won't do i decided to give myself a headache and flute the 11 inch long handle the way that i do this is by laying out one inch marks along the handle rough drawing it and then filing it to shape after a ferrochloride etch to reveal the topography of our pattern i went with some cold blue to finish her up [Music] all right we've got our handle fluted we've got our slot carved in the top it's now time drive on this head that looks good to me now i'm going to cut an african black wood wedge to drive in the top of this hammer handle to fill in the hourglass shaped inside of the hammer eye all right we've got our handle fluted we've got our head etched blued looking purty we've got our ends finished it's now time for a little bit of axe wax and then we'll head out i'm really loving this damascus pattern that w's that we had on the outside of the billet before we twisted it really really comes comes to light and has like just some some cool kind of flamy uh organic looking elements inside the pattern that i'm just an absolutely huge fan of but with the hammer finished it's time to give it a test drive and for that we're gonna have to take it to nick's boots in spokane washington in order to resolve these boots i need to remove the laces then we'll put in a plastic foot mold called the last take out the screws holding the soles together [Music] we're gonna throw the boot onto the last [Music] is [Music] tighter yeah [Music] that's insane i'll then use the hammer to drive in a little spike that they use to pry off the heel cap and then the sole itself that's so satisfying oh my gosh yep just like that and you actually put your leather strap underneath the soles now to clean up the exposed stitching i tried cutting it off but the material was too tough however a torch and a belt grinder seem to do the trick [Music] now that the sole has been successfully removed and cleaned up it's time to begin the process of resoling it the first step is to coat a layer of industrial strength glue on the bottom of the boot as well as the slip sword then i use a machine called a five in one which i run around the edge of the boot to make sure there aren't any gaps that's it we're done [Music] no more work left strap these bad boys on and go that's it it's a snowshoe and a boot now that it's sealed up i'll use the five and one again to cut away the excess of the slip sole next i went ahead and sanded the heel stack in preparation to apply the glue which has a sitting time of about 15 minutes that just so happened to be the perfect amount of time to attach the lug sole onto the bottom of the boot this glue gets applied to both parts and adheres when you hit it with a hammer it's great [Music] hmm crusty isn't that delicious to hold the heel of the boot together we're using what some people in the industry call a boot nail they act like a rivet when they hit the steel bottom of the last and turn around in a u-shape locking themselves in once the whole heel stack is complete we'll make like a beach and sand the edges to shape so [Music] with that wrapped up we've just got a little bit of final finishing and these boots will be ready for walking once again so [Music] and with that we've wrapped up today's episode i've got new soles on my boots they feel great they're holding up very well it's been about a week of wearing them since we actually went to nyx and it's just a pleasure to have good souls on my boots again if you like boots like these you can check them out both on nick's boots youtube channel and on their website they're called the overlanders they're just swell this is a pair of boots that i actually specked out from them it wasn't something that they really offered before i kind of like mix and matched from different pairs that they had and came up with what i thought would be the ideal boot for my lifestyle and what i do and i gotta say i'm thrilled with it i think they're fantastic we also have forge or die merch available back again on the website and hopefully i'm gonna have a couple more designs coming out soon i just need to learn how to draw and then take that drawing and put it onto a t-shirt in a way that is economical and with that we're gonna end it thank you guys so much for following along and thank you patrons for patronizing me bye-bye [Music] [Music] you

Channel: Will Stelter

Views: 154,663

Rating: 4.9761868 out of 5

Keywords: blacksmith, blacksmithing, cobbler, damascus, forge, forged in fire, making, making hammer, stelter will, will stelter

Id: ppdCaIN57xc

Length: 19min 48sec (1188 seconds)

Published: Sat Jun 05 2021