Do You Need a Cross Peen Hammer to Be a Blacksmith?

Do You Need a Cross Peen Hammer to Be a Blacksmith?

The short answer: Nope.

There are plenty of people out in Internetland who will try to shame you or tell you that you need a specific piece of equipment to be an "actual" blacksmith.

Most of the time these people can't walk the talk. They want to feel superior by creating a hard line between who can and can't be this or that.

It says more about them than it does about you. The Internet is full of trolls after all.

In this post and video, we'll talk about cross peens, ball peens, and the most important factor to consider when it comes to hammers.

What Do I Use at Brown County Forge?

I have quite a few hammers that come into play when I'm teaching and making home hardware.

Here's a list of them off the top of my head:

• 2.5 pound Vaughan Cross Peen
• 3 pound Estwing mini sledge (I have two of them)
• 4 pound Kobalt Cross Peen
• 6 pound Vulcan full size sledge
• 2.2 pound Peddinghaus Cross Peen
• 2 pound Ace Ball Peen
• 1.5 pound Vaughan Ball Peen
• 8 oz. ball peen

My everyday hammer since March 2011 is the Vaughan 2.5 pound SuperSteel (Amazon affiliate link) at the top of the list.

They've painted it blue and raised the price by 6 bucks since then, but it's still the same hammer. 

Much cheaper than a fancy, $120+ Big Blu hammer and it's a style that has worked for hundreds of years.