Happy New Year to you all,
I thought that I'd throw in my 2 cents on the subject of proper hammers
for
wire wheels. Although my 69 TR6 has disk wheels, I previously owned two
Healeys that had wires. Both cars came with Thor brand hammers that had
copper faces on both sides. I found that the knock offs were a bit beat up
due to hammering from the copper-faced hammers, and I had the knock offs
reground to clean them up and replated. What I wound up doing was putting
the Thor hammers in the cars' trunks to look good, and I made a new hammer
to actually use on the knock offs with a head made out of 2" copper pipe
filled with lead, with a handle made out out of 1/2" galvanized pipe. I
used lead from tire balacing weights, melted in a coffee can on the stove.
I made a form that allowed the lead to protrude a little from the copper
pipe on each side. Once the hammer had actually been used on a knock-off,
it flattened out and a larger lead surface was avilable to contact the knock
offs. I used the lead hammer for many years, I found that it was very
effective due to its weight and it did absolutely no damage to the
knock-offs.
Rex Townsend
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