Spent 2 years forging with the hammer grip wrong before a guy at a demo corrected me

I was at a hammer-in near Portland last spring. Some older smith watched me work a piece of 1/2 inch round bar and just goes 'you're choking the handle man'. I had been gripping the hammer like a baseball bat the whole time. My wrist was always sore after a session. He showed me the loose grip with the thumb on top thing and it felt awkward for like a week but now I can go twice as long without pain. Has anyone else had that moment where you thought you had the basics down and turns out you were doing it backwards?

2 comments

2 Comments

the_jordan7d ago

Oh man, I remember reading a blog post from a blacksmith out in Ohio who talked about this exact thing. He said the loose grip lets your hammer bounce naturally off the anvil instead of having to muscle it back up for each strike. Took me a while to trust it, but once it clicked it was like the hammer started doing half the work for me.

amyb547d ago

Yeah it's wild how many little things we think we've figured out that we're actually doing completely wrong. Idk maybe it's just me but I feel like that applies to everything from tying your shoes to how you hold a pencil.