Harley Specialty Tools: Hammers, Chisels, Drifts, and More

Let's take a moment and look at the different types of hammers, the different types of chisels, drift punches, regular punches, press plugs, parallels. No matter what you do, when it comes to mechanical work, eventually you're gonna come across a stubborn component that needs a little bit of persuasion. In order to persuade it in the correct direction, you're gonna need the proper tools. That would include some type of driving mechanism, a hammer, and some type of extension of the motion of the hammer. That would be a chisel, a punch, a parallel, or a press plug. Your typical ball-peen hammer. It has a flat hardened end and it has a rounded, what they call the ball-peen end. It has a correct application. Again, if you're using hard, you don't wanna hit hard against hard. You wanna hit hard against soft. You wanna drive something hard, you don't wanna hit it the hard surface of the hammer against the hard surface, let's say of the race of a bearing. You always wanna have an intermediate that is soft. The reason for that, it doesn't damage the hardened surface of the hammer or the hardened surface of the component. The softer intermediate, whether it's a brass punch, or just a long piece of solid brass round stock or square stock, for example. The motion, the energy of the swing of the hammer is absorbed in the intermediate, the softer material, before the energy reaches the other hard surface. Let's say the outer or inner race of a bearing. Next to the ball-peen hammer. We have commonly what's known as a dead blow hammer. This is a plastic mallet that's typically filled with lead pellets. It does create quite a bit of force when it's swung down and impacts on something. What you can clearly see, this hammer has been subjected to, you don't wanna strike a hard surface with a soft mallet. These type of dead blow hammers are typically used on soft components. Let's say you were gonna to, for example try to drive a plastic dowel into or out of something, this would be the ideal hammer. You're gonna hit soft against soft. You're not gonna damage the face of the hammer the way this one has been damaged. Another type of hammer, again known as a dead blow. It has a harder poly end, and it has a softer poly end. You don't wanna strike these against anything hard. They're typically used for soft compositions. Another example of a ball-peen hammer. Again, it's listed as a dead blow ball-peen. What that means is, inside the head of this hammer is a lead shot. So when you impact something, the lead pellets travel from the open end or the non force end to the end that's striking something. And what it does, it adds extra internal force to the swing of a hammer. You've got your world-renowned sledgehammer. More commonly used for iron work or masonry work than it is for mechanic work, but it does have its place in the shop. There are times when you have a stubborn rusted bolt, or something that you really don't care to compromise the structural integrity or the structural design. All you need to do is remove that particular rusted bolt out of your way to access a component that you need to reuse. Sledge hammer also has its place. This is another example. Both of these are the typical sledge. Instead of a wooden handle, they both have fiberglass handles with a rubber grip. You get a lot less transfer of vibration or of the striking force through the fiberglass rubber coated handle than you do through a straight wooden handle. Again, you don't lose any of the striking motion But you feel a lot less of it into your hand and your wrist when you're swinging a hammer with a fiberglass wrapped with rubber handle design. Next hammer is a brass hammer. This is a brass. We can call it a ball-peen, but it isn't a true ball-peen because one end isn't rounded. Again, brass hammers is a very soft malleable material. You can see this one, there's a lot of chips missing. Obviously it's been used incorrectly and struck against a very hard surface. Typically a brass hammer is only used with a brass punch. You keep soft against soft, and the driving force goes through the intermediate, the punch travels the force, gets the job done on the other end. As you can see with the missing chips, it's important to always wear safety glasses. These chips missing from this hammer obviously flew off the head of the hammer at a pretty good rate of speed and they will stick into your skin, even stick into your eye, cause permanent damage. The fact that you put on safety glasses can avoid any type of personal injury. Any of these hammers can send shards of the metal the hammer's made of, or the plastic material the hammer is made of, away from the head. When you strike, always wear safety glasses. All the way to my right here, there is an assortment of chisels. Chisels are typically hardened steel. They're meant to drive apart or split other hardened materials. You don't wanna use the wrong width or wrong taper chisel. When you're trying to split. Let's say, for example you wanna split the collar off of a bearing, chisel's the ideal tool. You strike the end of the chisel with the hardened end of the hammer. With safety glasses on, you don't have to worry about any shards of metal that may leave the head of the hammer or the head of the chisel or the tip of the chisel. Chisels like any other tool, need to be properly maintained and properly sharpened to get the correct lifespan out of the tool. Next to the chisel, there's a small pin punch. These punches are typically use to drive pins or rusted bolts, not bolts that are threaded in, but bolts that thread through or bolts that fit through an allocation in a component and thread into another component behind it. Let's say you had two plates bolted together. The bolt runs through the first plate, threads into the plate behind it. Now the plates are frozen together, but yet you're able to get some penetrating oil in the seam of the plates. You can use the pin punch to hit just the bolt and shock the two plates apart. By the small diameter, you're able to access smaller areas where a large drift punch or a piece of brass round stock just won't fit in. Drift punches are typically hardened steel and they're used to shock loose components that are frozen together. The nice part about a drift punch is the taper on the punch. Only allows the punch to go so deep into a component. So you're able to make contact down into a blind hole of a component but yet you're not able to drive like the pin punch, drive it completely through the component, causing damage to something you may need to reuse. The drift punch will actually hit the outside dimension of the hole and stop before it goes completely through. Brass, just regular round stock brass is what I most commonly use to loosen corroded hardware, to loosen components that might be damaged and twisted together. The brass is a nice soft malleable material and you can drive against brass with brass or with a hardened hammer. Problem when you use hard against soft, it has a tendency to mushroom the end of the brass round stock. Once it's mushroomed, it needs to be either re-machined, or cleaned with a file to maintain that round integrity. If you need to get the entire cylindrical portion of the drift or the round stock into a component. Once something's mushroomed, let's say this piece of square stock brass. You can clearly see it's been used as a press plug, it's been used to smash components apart. There's numerous nicks throughout the entire body. Both ends have been mushroomed over. Obviously someone uses this a lot for a particular application. Another thing to bear in mind, when you're dealing with the softer metals, as you hear more on them with a striking force, what you do, you actually change the molecular composition of the brass or the aluminum or the softer metal. By mashing it together, you make it denser, you make it harder. It hits a point when it gets to a certain hardness where it just chips off. That's the point where those flying chips can injure you. Make sure if you're in a position where you know chips are gonna be flying, wear gloves if you have to, protect yourself. Always protect your eyes. Same thing will apply with any aluminum round stock that's used as a press plug. These can be put into a hydraulic or arbor press to safely and securely press one component together to another or press two components apart. Again, ID/OD dimensions are important. You'll see this type of particular round stock brass was machined with a relief and a raised shoulder. Whoever made this had a particular purpose in mind when they spun it on a lathe and made this surface so it could possibly fit into another machine component. Whether it was there as a permanent fixture, or there just to drive components apart, or drive components together. Once again, the more you smash on a soft metal, the more the impact energy condenses the molecular makeup of the metal, the harder the metal gets. So in reality, the more you condense brass, the harder it gets. So if you're depending on a particular brass drift punch, or brass press plug to remain soft and not cause any damage to the component that it's put up against, make sure after so many uses, that you replace that brass. 'Cause the brass or the aluminum will get harder. And once it gets hard, it will cause damage to the opposing piece that it's pushing against. When it comes to parallels, these are hardened steel pieces of square or rectangular stock. They're typically not used for smashing against with a hammer, they're typically used on a hydraulic or an arbor press as a nice, straight, sturdy foundation. You're able to put components across the parallels and then press down on them. What the parallel does, it offers you a harder surface, a harder foundation than the components you're pressing together. Now depending on what you're doing out there, whether it be motorcycle repair or any type of mechanical repair, there are particular items that you need to use to do the job correctly. A lot of them are homemade This piece here, no one really knows its original origin. But I know this has been used more than ones as a driving tool. You can see the end is clearly mushroomed, so someone's been beating on this end and using this end to drive another component. What it originally was, no one knows. But it suits the purpose for the operation that it's used for. One thing you do not ever wanna do, never use an extension as a drive pin as a drift punch, as a piece of round stock. Even if your intention is, I need something really hard, I'm gonna beat the hell out of this bolt and get it out. Get a piece of hardened steel, get a piece of chrome alloy steel, something that has a rock wall hardness, that's harder than what you're driving against. If you use any of your extensions and you beat on them hard enough and long enough, what you'll do, you'll make the metal that the extension is made of denser, harder, and you'll mushroom it over. So next time you go to use the extension on a ratchet for a true mechanical operation, the mushroom end's not gonna fit the ratchet. If you go and you try to use a carbide rasp and make the square opening square again, chances are it's just gonna fit on the ratchet loosely and fall off when you go to use it into a tight area. Don't damage your own hand tools. Always find something that suits the purpose. Even if a piece of brass round stock is a little longer than what you need, I would much rather sacrifice a piece around stock, cut it with a hacksaw to make it the correct length than sacrifice... I mean, if you're buying Snap-on tools or a high quality tool manufacturer tool, a six inch extension like this is probably 50, $60. You're gonna sacrifice a $60 tool to take apart a $10 component. It doesn't make sense. Do a little research. I mean, if you don't have a vast array of hammers, do a little research, look at what you plan on doing. Do a little homework, ask a few people who are in the trade or who happen to do what you're planning to do. You don't just ask them, what do you typically use for a hammer when you have to hammer something in or hammer something out? If they recommend a sledge hammer, ask them, and it's not sludge hammer, it is sledge hammer. Ask them, if they typically use a sledge hammer as their primary hammer, ask them, do you prefer a hickory, or an oak handle, wooden handle, or do you prefer fiberglass with a rubber covering? And then ask them why they prefer it. You may find an older gentleman, he's used a wooden hammer forever and his muscles in his arms are just so used to the abuse, it doesn't bother him. You can find someone who's at the same age and he finally learned, God, I get a lot less vibration through the fiberglass rubber coated handle, I don't know why I've been swinging a wood handle all these years. Again, if you have the opportunity, use the particular hammer you wanna purchase in the application you're gonna use it for. If you can, use it in that application before you purchase it. That way there, you know you like it. You know what the hammer's made of, what the intention of the job you're gonna use it for is. And again, when you're purchasing tools, buy the highest quality tool you can afford. If you buy cheap chisels, don't be disappointed when the ends mushroom right over because it's a poor quality material. If you buy a good chisel set once, chances are, kept correctly maintained, kept correctly sharpened, chisels, brick punches, or pin punches, drift punches should last a lifetime.