8# Atha Hot Cut?

[Chillylulu]

I'm not sure what this is called...

I picked it up yesterday.

Is it pre-Stanley?


Chilly

[mikeswrenches]

I think it's a stone masons hammer. Stanley used the Atha mark for some time after they bought the company much of the time without the Stanley mark.

Mike

[Twilight Fenrir]

Yep, stone mason's hammer. I love my Atha hammers, but got jo use for that one :P

[Yadda]

Nice find!  My grandfather had a similar hammer.  He used it when building sandstone retaining walls and chimneys.

[Chillylulu]

Thanks for your input guys, but I think my pics misled you.  This tool is huge.

I think it is too big to be a stone mason's tool. I should have given some reference in the picture for size.

In my wrenching days my forearms were bigger than most men's necks (>17") biceps were more than 20". I could curl a set with 135 lbs., regularly with 120 lbs.

I couldn't have swung an 8 lb hammer for very long.

Here is a picture with other hammers:



Included are two goldsmith hammers, a Peddinghaus and a Fretz, a standard masons hammer, and my largest Fretz metal pounder - a jewelers sledge (for silver, gold, copper, and brass.)

The big Fretz SH-1 has a 1¼ lb head.  The largest stone masons hammers I could find in old Stanley catalogs were 4 lbs.

This tool is 8 lbs.  At it's widest it is 1-5/8" wide, 2-9/16" tall and 8-1/4" long. the cutting edge is sharp, but widens out too fast to be an axe. The striking face is 2-3/8" x 1-3/8" This tool is stout.

I am pretty sure it isn't a stone masons hammer, I have a dozen or so examples of those.

Not really a tool to be swung, if so I would think it would have been made to accept a larger handle, like a sledge hammer. A big sledge is 10 lbs. At 8 lbs it is of sledge weight.

I am still of the hypotheses that it is a hot cut tool, made to be held by one person on hot metal and struck by another smith.  More a handled chisel than a hammer, really.  I am basing my guess on you tube videos of smiths making damascus steel.  Many use a tool like this on top of the steel, or a hardy on the bottom side, to cut a hot iron billet before folding it back to re-weld.

Another guess is some kind of wood splitter or maul, but it is bigger than most of those I have seen commercially.

Chilly

[Twilight Fenrir]

I've seen stone masons hammers like that up to 20lbs... I actually have a slightly different style of one I use for blacksmithing... Makes quick work out of forging railroad rail :P

[kwoswalt99]

Hot cut hammers look different.

[wvtools]

Looking at the 1939 Stanley catalog, which shows a lot of Atha tools, it is a No. 710 single face spalling or stone hammer, which came in 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, 16, 18, and 20 pound sizes.

[Yadda]

Looking at the 1939 Stanley catalog, which shows a lot of Atha tools, it is a No. 710 single face spalling or stone hammer, which came in 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, 16, 18, and 20 pound sizes.

You could probably make sand out of granite with a 20 pound stone hammer.

[Chillylulu]

You guys are spot on.  I can't imagine swinging that hammer very long.

What is spalling? We use the term for when plaster splits or flakes away from a hole, especially when drilling from the other side.  We drill a pilot hole then drill from the other side to prevent spalling.

Would spalling in this case be roughing up the surface of stone? Something like heating up the surface of granite to flake it off?

Chilly