Many years ago with my vessels I started doing something that I call hammer chasing. If you don’t know what that is I’m not surprised. It’s a term I simply made up to try and describe how the approach was a bit different than traditional chasing. The term may well have existed prior to me and it just filtered into my subconscious. I don’t really know. Regardless, what I call hammer chasing is an approach where I hammer directly on my vessels to develop the designs, rather than interjecting various chasing tools between the hammer and vessel.
Clearly with traditional chasing it’s far easier to get fine details, a wider range of marks, and much more control. However, it is a time consuming process. With hammer chasing on the other hand I can fairly quickly alter the overall form of the vessel in dramatic ways as long as I’m not going for elaborate fine details. In particular I find I like using this to create ridges and troughs that make a few contour lines around the piece. The series I’ve titled Lustrous Contours are all vessels where I’ve employed hammer chasing as the sole approach to embellishing the initial vessel form.
What I’ve been getting into even more these days is combining hammer chasing with traditional chasing. The hammer chasing work creates bold, dramatic form changes to the vessel. Then I can play off these new forms as I add additional layers of design and detail with the chasing tools. It’s been an exciting thing for me to explore.
When I hammer chase I will fill the vessel with a microcrystalline wax which provides a nice balance of support and give. The support keeps it from completely collapsing in as I hammer, but the give is needed to let me push back the metal some. I start out with a regular raising hammer to do the major metal movement. However, these are just too big and heavy for the fine tuned controlled hammering I need to tighten up the lines, crisp the ridges, and blend the curves of the hills to valleys. For this I need a smaller lighter hammer that allows maximum control. To do this I’ve been using a Fretz #9 that I bought many years ago at a SNAG conference. In fact I believe I got it shortly after they were first introduced. For the longest time I didn’t even know what hammer of his it was because mine doesn’t have the identifying “#9” on the handle like they do these days. This hammer has served me well in my hammer chasing work these many years. It does the job.
Then Saign Charlestein approached me with the idea of developing a signature tool, the Huang Raising Hammer and my eyes were opened to the idea of truly designing a hammer for specific tasks. I’m still a bit flabbergasted at how much nicer these new raising hammers are to use than my old Peddinghaus. This got me to thinking what my ideal hammer for my hammer chasing technique might be. Happily Saign was game to do another signature hammer with me. After several prototypes and lots of back and forth I’m delighted to announce the new Huang Embossing Hammers!
For anyone who is already familiar with using the #9 for this sort of work the biggest difference you will immediately notice is the increased weight. I challenged Saign to keep the hammer head short, for reasons I’ll describe later, yet boost the weight. I wasn’t sure if he’d be able to get it as heavy as I’d like yet still remain small enough. He came through, finding ways to get it even heavier than what was needed. In the end we landed on an ideal weight a bit over 5 ounces. With this is has the heft needed to move the metal at a decent rate without an excessive number of hammer blows being required. Yet, it isn’t so heavy it impedes control. For me this change alone make the hammer worthwhile.
When I’m doing hammer chasing I find I tend to be working on two significantly different types of forms. Mostly I’m doing concave forms, areas that sink down in, frequently long troughs with the sides peaking to make ridges. At the ends of these forms I’m transitioning back over to convex shapes, hills, bulges, or just the normal type curvatures one gets on the exterior of a raised vessel. In order to tailor the function of the hammer to these different forms we decided it was best to make two versions of the Huang Embossing Hammer. For the concave troughs and valleys there is one with more rounded faces that tuck down into the spaces. For the convex shapes the hammer faces are still well softened at the edges to avoid unsightly marks from an edge hitting, but the overall face is much flatter, making it easier to smooth out such surfaces. I will admit I wasn’t fully sure how well this would work when I asked Saign to forge them this way. Still he was game to try. When I took those prototypes on their test run I was delighted with the results! If you are only going to get one of these two versions I would go with the rounded face because you can make it work for both situations. However, having the flat face version made shaping and smoothing my convex curves SO much easier! (I should note despite how differently they function the difference is visually subtle and doesn’t show up well in photos.)
Another detail to these hammers you may not notice at first is the slight cant downward to the hammer faces, as opposed to running straight perpendicular to the hammer handle. It’s a small thing, but because our natural hammer swing is in an arc this cant helps the head to strike more squarely with the piece you are working on.
Like Saign’s other hammers these are all individually forged rather than being cast or entirely milled. My understanding is that forging makes a superior hammer head because the process alters the crystalline structure of the metal, making it stronger. This is just one of many reasons why his hammers stand out from mass produced ones and why I’m proud to have my signature hammers crafted by him.
Another major reason I’m proud to work with him is the attention he gives to the hammer handles. Saign doesn’t just slap any old stick onto the end of a hammer head and call it good. He understands that the handle is just as critical a part of the hammer as the head. The handle is where we as users have the most intimate contact with the tool. When properly designed and crafted the handle is what allows the tool to become a natural extension of the hand. A great handle needs to be attuned to what the hammer head is designed for and how it will be used.
With the Huang Embossing Hammer I am looking for exemplary control. I find I will grasp the hammer in two different places depending on just where I’m at in my hammer chasing work. Initially it is down lower on the handle when I want good control but also more power behind my blows. As I am working a ridge line shape right up to a crisp edge I choke up on the hammer, reducing my power but giving me maximum control. I wanted a handle that would function for both situations. Naturally I still wanted it to look beautiful too! This was a tall order!
Like always Saign was able to deliver! We explored multiple options. The final result is a handle similar to what is on the Huang Raising Hammer but a bit smaller and adapted in nuanced ways to suite this particular use. It is still made from the wonderful osage orange, a wood that combines strength, durability, and exquisite beauty making it so ideal for hammer handles. I wrote a lot more about this wood in my previous review of Saign’s chasing hammers. For this hammer there is a flattened bulge which tucks nicely into the hand offering lots of contact for increased control. The bulge itself is positioned to be comfortable when held toward the bottom of the handle where you gain the most power, or about half way up where I find I tend to hold it when I need the most control. The small flair out at the base is a minor thing but it helps to anchor the tool in your hand.
Something about Saign’s handles I noticed but didn’t fully appreciate with the Huang Raising Hammer is the seductively smooth surface he has on the wood. It feels so good! I say I didn’t fully appreciate it then because I still had all my raising hammer calluses on my hand from my old Peddinhaus raising hammer. They would all line right up with where I’d hold and be in contact with the handle. Back then if I didn’t do any raising for an extended period of time my calluses would diminish. I could then count on sore hands and/or blisters developing when I began raising work again until I got those calluses redeveloped. Well, since switching to the Huang Raising Hammers I have had extended periods where I’ve done very little raising. Yet, to my surprise when I resumed the work I didn’t get blisters! In fact my calluses are fairly minor now compared to what they used to be. The polished surfaces of his hammer handles are so smooth as to be gloriously less abrasive to the hand. I find it remarkable. Naturally the handles on these Huang Embossing Hammers are of the same exquisite finish.
Ok, for all of you numbers folks here are some of the measurements of these hammers. I will note that since these are all individually hand crafted you can expect a bit of variance. As I said before the weight of the hammer head is a bit over 5 ounces. The length of the head is roughly 2 and 7/8 inches. I wanted to keep this short because I find this is a factor in hammer control for me, the shorter the better. I’ve worked with some smaller hammers that look like they would be good for hammer chasing but had relatively long heads which kept them from functioning well for this application. The overall length of the hammer handle is just under 11 inches.
There are two different sized faces. The wide one is 3/8″ x 3/4″. The narrow one is 1/4″ x 3/4″. The edges of the faces on both the rounded and flat versions are nicely dressed to round them back so you shouldn’t need to worry about a sharp edge accidentally making an ugly mark. These hammer faces also have Saign’s superb mirror finish!
I will likely keep my Fretz #9 hammer around for times when I might need a lightweight embossing hammer for hammer chasing, but I’m pretty sure it will be gathering dust most days because I’m just so much happier with how the Huang Embossing Hammers work. I’ve found them to be both more comfortable and functional to use. I’m delighted to be able to present them to you. If you want the highest quality hammer around for this sort of work I think you’ll find it with the Huang Embossing Hammers! I’m proud to put my name on them as a signature hammer.
The cost of these hammers is $239.99 each or a discounted price of $459.99 if you get the pair. Like all of Saign’s other hammers they are an investment in a high quality tool. I believe I noted earlier that if I was just going to get one I would go for the rounded face version as it can do both concave and convex surfaces. It just won’t do the convex forms as easily as the flat face version will.
For full disclosure I need to note something that probably won’t surprise you. I do receive a royalty from the sale of these signature Huang Embossing Hammers. For all of my readers/followers Saign has given me a discount code to offer you which will get you 10% off the price of these hammers, as well as any other tools on his website, www.metalsmithing-tools.com. That code is DH10. Should you choose to get one of these be sure to use this code when you check out! For convenience, here is a direct link to these hammers on Saign’s website.
Hammer chasing has been a dynamic technique for me in transforming the look and feel of my chased vessels. If you do, or are interested in doing, similar work I hope you get these hammers and find them as wonderful to use as I do! Also, if you would like to learn a bit more about how I approach hammer chasing I just made a series of 11 short videos and posted them on my new Odysee channel. If you like to just skip to the first video where you can see me using these new hammers you can go here.
