Japanese Hammers
Thom D
>Jim,
just catching up with the threads.
I have a bunch of Japanese hammers, somewhere between 10 and 20. I used to use them exclusively for everything including pounding nails. I use the 8 oz hammer for basic chisel work dovetails and such and up to the 20 ounce for something like making dais. I love these hammers and would buy more if I found just the right one... I got a lot of them form LV when they used to sell a range of Japanese hammers.
On the other hand... There is nothing all that special about them. For nails the western hammers are way better at least for the kind of work we actually do. As far as chisels are concerned I have mostly given up on the hammers. They are great, but they are noisy, no mater how massive your bench or even the floor. I have gone over to the rubber mallets. I don't really like them but they hit like a ton of bricks and leave me some hearing to enjoy the sound of my guitars.
For planes I will just use a corner of a piece of wood, or my favorite plane adjusting hammer - a metal shafted, plastic headed hammer, for auto body work, no idea why it is so good but it's my favorite. I try to be high church, but reality intrudes. With putters there is a theory that the elusive "feel" that people are looking for is mostly impact sound (people change their view about which putter feels best when wearing ear plugs). With putters, plastic heads outsell brass by a big margin.