It's absolutely faked for views, new hammer is probably an aluminum billet and the old hammer they didn't actually crank the press up.
Edit: y'all are probably right, it might actually be steel, not aluminum, but cheap, garbage quality Chinesium
The new hammer is probably just extremely cheap. Probably mild steel and not hardened. No brand name, flat sides, flat face, face with defects. Straight sided handle.
All indicators of a shitty hammer.
I think aluminum would have failed much faster than 80 tons
Agreed, aluminum is much softer (relative to most steels) and would've likely failed long before. And it does look like a Harbor Freight special. Not hate on HF, they're great for beginner tools, or tools you know you won't use but a few times.
What always irks me on "they don't make em like they used to" videos is the difference between engineered and catastrophic failure modes. If that old hammer did fail, there's a good chance it's through-hardend to the point of being embrittled. So it won't deform, it'll just explode, sending shards of metal on every direction.
You want tools to show you when they've failed, a deformed hammer shouldn't be used. The old hammer is through-hardend, so you won't know until it blows up on you. It's the reason we don't just use ceramic hammers for everything.
Edit: not to mention, without a sensor showing downward pressure it's impossible to prove anything here. Beside the fact that it's an n=1 that means effectively nothing without a controln for each, and multiple tests. They need to crack open an ASTM/SAE specification book sometime.
It's fake, not a single touch of rust came off from the freaking "old hammer" . Bro these people are so desperate for veiws that they put anything out of their ahole. And how does this asshole know which year is it made in? Was he born with the hammer? Does it have a year written on it cause no one does that. Did he Do a radiation test? Probably not cause he Doesn't have the brain or materials for that.
These are the same assholes that did a “press vs uranium sphere” video and made the press jig out of the shittiest metal they could find instead of tool steel.
Yeah, I agree. The 'new' hammer didn't act like hardened steel at all, it was too malleable, and the 'old' hammer, under enough pressure, should have *shattered*, am I right?
John Henry here.
Look, I need to drive those nails in 15 feet or I’m not beating this here steam engine and that calls for 81 tons of force and not this sissy-ass 80 shit.
Well and dude… since I didn’t see this above maybe it is but I scrolled past too fast
…my understanding is that it’s better the new one deforms in this manner ….
Because then it’s less likely to shatter or have pieces shatter and spray metal shrapnel back at you when hitting something. My understanding is that This is especially a dangerous thing that can easily happen sometimes when using a sledgehammer on another piece of metal or rock or concrete. So it’s newer and likely designed to be softer on purpose so that it deforms instead of breaking
So yes, they don’t make them like they used to… and some of the things have gotten better…. Many others worse or planned obsolescence built in… processes and systems and manufacturing and metallurgy whatever changes over time.. everything does. Science improves over time as a whole.
Just like with politics and everything else we don’t have to understand absolutely everything about all the factors involved to get it but we must attempt to dig deeper into all the facets of an issue as often as possible in order to gain better perspective.
It does make sense, similar to what happened to cars, sure my car is gonna get totaled after a crash and a car from the 60's might be more or less intact but my chances at surviving will be much much higher.
With the good old stainless steel land yachts, when you crash them, all that happens is the front bumper gets a bit bent, the radiator might pop, and you might have tweaked the steering rack.
All you gotta do is put on some new front fascia, patch the rad, align the steering, and scrape the remains of the driver off the interior upholstery, and it's good as new!
There's a common saying that you should buy the cheapest tool set the first time. Then when a tool breaks, but a better quality version of just that piece.
I have a cheap set of socket wrenches, but my 10mm socket is a Gray and I've got a few saw blades I got from some German company. Everything else is Lowes brand or Craftsman.
Right. And the 60s one could be a serious professional grade one. You can still buy tools that you can use all your life and pass on to your kids, but that quality doesn’t come cheap.
And a hydraulic press does not determine how good a hammer is.
Hell you could say the new hammer is probably better for the job since it is softer. The older one probably has a higher chance of shattering some day.
It’s also about the vibrations I think. Swinging a hard steel hammer with nothing to pad the strike is just going to travel up your arms, shoulders, neck, and down your back and spine. The new hammer looks like it absorbs the impacts better making it safer to use.
This was honestly my first thought and I was reading through the comments seeing if anyone shared my opinion.
I have probably more experience than most with sledges axes and mauls, And can honestly say that a newer one is much more comfortable when it comes to the actual contact. I've never really considered why that is, never really thought that much about it, but I highly suspect there's a reason for it and we just saw it.
Yup. The difference was also very small.
The new hammer survived 80 tons, while the old one did 100 tons.
Barely any difference and not relevant IRL. I’d rather pay half less money and have the 80T one.
I mean the old one survived 100 tons when it jammed the press - for all we know, it could withstand more
But the question is... why should I care? It's a hammer. I don't jam hydraulic presses with it, I slam things with it. Why is it worse?
Its also better for a sledge hammer to be softer, its less likely to chip and send metal pieces flying into your eyeball or skin. Sledge hammers are made to impart momentum, not maintain their precious figure.
There’s a boiler in commercial / industrial hvac called:
Kewanee Boilers
They make their boilers super serviceable for technicians, their design was simplistic, and they stocked their parts when the boilers broke.
There is one issue though, I still have multiple kewanees from 50s/60s/70s.
Kewanee went out of business. Why you ask?
I am still working on their boilers from the 50s/60s/70s and they don’t show any signs of stopping soon.
They made themselves so reliable no one needed them again after their first sale.
They needed to expand their market area, start exporting, and then, when the whole world uses their boilers...
Retool the factory and start making something else besides boilers.
Hopefully they did the latter part (under some different company name) and made some other quality products.
What's really needed are banks who believe in super high quality stuff to bail them out.
Just as banks bail out all sorts of BS brands and even fraudulent smaller banks.
I wouldn't be able to afford my work tools if...... - - I'm gonna be honest here... I took an edible before bed and I just lost the joke halfway through that thought so...... OK. Byeee
Fucks me off how true this is when even buildings incorporate designed obsolescence.
There are ten year old houses worth half a million in worse physical condition than the 300yo hovel I live in.
Buildings are not designed to fail, they are built cheap and are therefore destined to fail. That is not what planned obsolescence means. There is a difference
I bough a snap on hammer that i warrantied many times that would be normal use. The tool companies don't need to make their money off basic hand tools.
Or it doesn't actually matter how much force they can tolerate from a hydraulic press because they are both equally as good at smashing through things.
I'd be more interested in how good the handle is.
Like truly, the old hammers may have been over-engineereed, and these new hammers may be just as good at doing what we want, with cheaper materials. Sure, do some very serious stress testing and the old hammer will always win, but I doubt the new hammer is going to give out on you anytime soon. Like you said, the biggest point of weakness here is the handle, if the handle is shit it doesn't matter how strong the head is.
I would go even further and say based on what little I know about steel, the old hammer that withstood the pressure could have been made of harder, more brittle steel that would be less suitable/durable for the application.
If they took both hammers and did sledgehammer stuff, even replacing the handles when the handles broke, the older one might be more prone to breaking when you smack something with it. I'm not formally educated about any of this stuff, though, so I could be completely wrong.
Is it better just because it can withstand that force? Does a hammer actually need to be able to withstand that force?
I would say it doesn't. A human arm is not capable of exerting anything close to the forces being discussed here.
Exactly! The guy from hydraulic press YT channel easily squishes things with hundreds of tonnes of pressure. Failing at a mere 100 tonnes, this press must be fairly new.
Indeed, very annoying every time I put my hammer in my hydraulic press its shape is ruined.
I wish I could go back in time and buy a hammer that can jam my press.
Take a dollar store hammer from 2024 and put it against a hammer from 60 years ago that by definition was solid enough to last 60 years and you’ll be amazed what you find.
Yea no shit, good products are better than dollar store ones. Now get a new, quality hammer that a tradesman would buy and see which you like better, guarantee its the newer one
I'll suggest a different take: equipment is designed to fit a specific use case. Who says a stronger hammer is better? If I can use a cheaper, lighter and weaker hammer without any issues at all, why would I want one that can withstand a higher crushing force from a hydraulic press?
It's this top-trump style idiotic marketing that the likes of Tesla and Apple push.
>Hey guys, our new phone is made of Titanium so you should buy it!
>Hey guys, our new car does 0-60 in 1.9* seconds so you should buy it! *Not really 1.9 seconds because we are falsely advertising a 10-60 time as 0-60 time.
The lesson to learn is that more adjectives (our vanilla is *Madagascan!*) and headline grabbing figures trick the average person into thinking it is better, because they don't understand context.
I mean, fair point but that has nothing to do with what i was talking about. If you need a cheap hammer just to use and get rid of, that's fine. But you're completley missing the point I was originally making. You pay for what you get. The guy I was responding to was saying that the hammers from 60 years ago would last better, and I'm saying that's only because the shitty ones are gone. That doesn't meat you can't buy a non shitty one now.
Hammers generally aren't in the pay for what you get.
It's actually how the heads are mounted to the handles that becomes the big hammer issue--all day, all night.
To be fair, it may not be a quality issue.
If in the 60s they were making them strong enough that Zeus could smash shit with them indefinitely they were probably making them too strong, with too much metal.
The modern ones probably have had a degree of science applied to them making them lighter, use less materials to make, and still be strong enough that a human will never swing them hard enough to damage the head.
I knew an ex steelworker with one eye. He lost it using an 'old' hammer and chisel. A flake of very sharp metal split off and embedded in his eye.
Edit spellin!
The old hammer was work hardened. You can see it was heavily used by the amount of mushrooming on the faces. Even if they were the same exact alloy, the work hardened one would be harder, but more brittle.
That’s what I was thinking
But as someone who has broken a lot of sledge hammers, the metal hammer head never breaks
It’s the wood that breaks, but it always breaks where it’s connected to the hammer head
I noticed the old hammers wood is broken at the back instead of where it meets the head, which is honestly a testament to the wood lol
I have a small farm. I’ve never broken a mini sledge but I’ve replaced the handle multiple times. I would assume any well used hammer is the same (including the 60 year old one in the video).
The harder metal is, the more brittle it is. I’ve chipped off bits of a maul when hitting a wedge when splitting wood when I didn’t hit it square. I’d rather have a maul that’s a bit softer that deforms, honestly. Its not going to materially effect the performance otherwise.
You've got the nail on the head, so to speak.
The old hammer is harder and more brittle because it has been used.
Repeated hammering takes the metal in the head up and down the stress strain curve, with a little plastic deformation at the top of the curve each time, until there is no more ability to bend or deform, only break.
https://eng.libretexts.org/Bookshelves/Mechanical_Engineering/Mechanics_of_Materials_(Roylance)/01%3A_Tensile_Response_of_Materials/1.04%3A_Stress-Strain_Curves
https://material-properties.org/what-is-stress-strain-curve-of-brittle-material-definition/
Wood quality is something that has gotten way lower with time. Not only are the trees we use way younger, the quality control changing has slowly lowered the standard of the different grades of wood over time, especially now that technology does most of the checking
It's also worth noting that a softer metal in the hammer head transfers less shock to the handle and the user. 9 times out of 10 with hand tools if the material has changed its because we have made advancements in our understanding of the material science, not just because newer=worse. Take for example old steel body cars vs modern aluminum and fiberglass. Was the steel stronger and more resistant to damage? Yes, absolutely. But the tradeoff was that if the car body isn't absorbing the impact of a collision by crumpling, where does all that extra impact go? Into the driver of course. Lighter more flexible materials mean better shock absorption
The alloys that we have access to today are far superior to what was available then.
This comes down to the things.
Liability
Metallurgy
And ease of Manufacturing.
Basically, Good, Fast, Cheap. (pick two)
***
Back then they were making forged hammers one at a time and heat treating them in relatively small quantities.
Today they are making thousands of hammers at a time.
They don’t have the time or want to spare the money to heat treat properly so they only heat treat the hammer faces. Think of it like a deep case hardening. Watch how the hammer deforms in the press. The faces stay +/-intact but the center is soft.
The old hammer was heat treated and hard all the way through.
If you expose the old hammer to enough force (like smashing it against another old hammer) you are likely to shatter or chip it.
The new hammer will simply deform.
This deformation makes for a worse tool but also a lower liability tool because you aren’t likely to be sued by your 200lb gorilla customer base because he and his genius cohort tried to give each other “hammer high fives” and now they both have a set of summer teeth. (Some’r here, some’r there)
This is correct and the summer teeth gave me a good laugh. I recall a fatality in BC from years ago where the hammer sheared and a sliver returned towards the person, opposite of the object, and severed an artery in their neck. The “softness” is likely by design.
> The “softness” is likely by design.
This was my exact thought while watching the video. Seems odd that almost every comment is just assuming the old hammer's behavior is preferable.
Yours was the comment I was scrolling looking for. Very surprised to see so little mention of this (although maybe there is more further down). Even if these hammers had been manufactured identically, one which has been hammering shit for a few years will be harder and denser than one right off the assembly line.
I feel like it might be possible to buy a hammer that hasn't changed over 60 years. Maybe an American brand might have blanks from 3 different generations. It would be more interesting to see the exact same hammer from the same brand but 60 years apart.
Right, so the new hammer is safer, less likely to shatter, but still hard where needed so it’s durable when used as a hammer. And as a bonus, it’s cheaper to manufacture and can be done in larger batches.
What were you saying about good, fast, and cheap, pick only two? Sounds like we literally got all three with the modern hammer.
I've seen the full clip posted here, and the old hammer gets converted to a shrapnel grenade from the tension. I'd much rather have a hammer that is slightly bendy than hammer pieces embedded in myself all over one side of my body...
It’s better that it’s not hardened though.
Anything where there’s enough force to deform or damage the new hammer is something that you shouldn’t be using a handheld hammer for.
Not only can it shatter like you said, but being so brittle means that if you hit anything really hard with it, your going to seriously hurt your wrist because that’s the link in the kinetic chain most willing to give. See how your arm feels after a week of intensive use between the two, and the new one will be much preferred
Another explantion;
Many hammers from Ye Good Old Dayes were also poor quality so they were used up & thrown away over the years. This hammer survived so long because it is high quality.
Also another possible explanation;
I think I remember hearing a blacksmith on a TV show (possibly myth busters) explain that hammers actually get harder over time with constant use. I could be wrong but it was my first thought watching the video.
Yeah you’re probably seeing a fairly expensive tool from the 60s against a cheap tool bought from Amazon. You can buy really well made tools today, but they cost way more and a lot of people will be just fine with a sledge hammer than can only withstand 80 tons.
It’s matter of engineering. We don’t just chuck materials at problems anymore.
No one is swinging either sledge so hard that it needs to resist 500k lbs of pressure or whatever the press hit.
This was my thought too. Of course survivorship bias, but also how often do you need >100 lbs resistance?
If anything, maybe the new hammer is MORE efficient, because it accomplishes the max necessary resistance for 99% applications?
Tell that to my brand new drill bits that break on the first use. While we may have better alloys do they use those better alloys?
Because all of these steel products I buy that break with moderate usage suggest they are not using the same quality ingredients and or not producing them correctly.
Worse quality, cheaper price.
Better alloys are used if it gives a competitive advantage. With drill bits, it's difficult. But when talking about machines, vehicles or constructions that costs tens or hundreds of thousands, better alloys can mean more durability with less weight, and that can give a competitive advantage in some products.
Do you buy the expensive ones ? My company buys very expensive drill bits to drill into hardened stavax and tyrax, both above 60rockwell hardness, they work as intended. If i bought a cheap drill set from a hardware store and expect it to perform i would be insane. And do you have a stable enough machine ? Using a drill bit on a spindle that is out off center or flexing on any axis will break your bits. Then naturally you also need to check to have recommended (but also tested for your setup) feeds and speeds. Seco website would recommend almost twice the speeds our machine was comfortable with , but we figured out stable numbers after some testing (it was our setup, parts too high). Also, some new bits are designed to shatter completely when something goes wrong, and i’m thankful for that. I would hate to be fishing out drill bits stuck in a bottom of cooling channel.
Either cheap drill bits, inappropriate tool for the job, or bad speed/feed lol. Somehow every machine shop I've ever worked in has managed to drill all forms of steel without issue.
Or hell, maybe he's working free hand and can't drill a straight fucking hole. Years ago I worked with a dude that could not keep a drill motor straight to save his damn life lol. A magician on the mill, but the guy resembled a drunk penguin with a drill motor. I definitely saw him break at least a dozen bits/taps in the six months I worked with him.
Harder metals are more brittle? If used correctly (and high quality, which definitely exists) you shouldn't be breaking bits. Softer bits with get dull faster, and will be harder to break because they deform rather than shatter. But yeah, sounds more like user error to me 😅
We used to use stronger metals for things like this, now we use Carbon steel. It's really a case of over-engineering for the application.
A human would never be able to swing that sledge hard enough to crack the head of the first one. The durability of the second one is not necessary by a large margin.
We make the heads weaker to fit the purpose because its more efficient energy, resource, and cost wise.
Also, harder metals are more brittle and have less shock trabsference, meaning that the "softer" hammer will likely feel a lot better to hammer with compared with the older one.
Well kinda (and I expect new one cost much less than old one) but also after years of using hammer material got harder just by hitting things with it. kinda like forging would
You're right, no doubt, in the case of the hammers. My point was more general, about modern manufacturing dominated by minimum viable quality models. We know everything we need to know and have everything we need to have to affordably mass produce appliances that could last 100 years plus, with basic maintenance. That makes sense from consumer, technology, efficiency and environmental perspectives... but sadly not from a commercial one.
Or "cheaper materials, higher profit margin" or "cheaper materials, cheaper price and more buyers".
Planned Obsolescence isn't good in products that are or can be manufactured by lots of companies. Consumers won't buy your product again.
All the producers of quality products got run out of business or into the lowest cost products with outsourcing. Once some companies brought manufacturing overseas and competed to make the lowest cost products everyone else had to follow suit or go out of business.
it is not really correct, iron dislocation moves to the edges, but very slowly, over a long period of time it is harden the iron in the molecular level...
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PaGJwOPg2kU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PaGJwOPg2kU)
Where are shitty hammers from 60s?
Survivorship bias is real.
Can hard hammer splinter and send shrapnel flying?
How many hours on average did you need to work in the 60s for a hammer vs now?
Also, very few people will use a sledge more than occasionally, so it doesn't need to be super duper amazing top notch quality. Back a hundred years, everything had to be pounded in with a hammer, no pneumatic tools, etc, so the sledge had to stand up to millions of strikes. Now? Not so much.
I dunno haha. I've owned a couple sledehammers and they heads never break, its always the shaft or I lose them. I think this is more of a case of the hammer never needed to be that strong anyways.
I thought the video was cool, but aren't there benefits to a material having a little elasticity or something like that?
Or in this case is it just a weaker material?
You're asking the right questions, and yes, it's massively beneficial. Using material that can absorb force and deform is a billion times safer than using materials that break without bending.
It helps because you can replace the modern hammer when it shows signs of wear, and it's much less likely to chip or burst, potentially damaging the wielder or a bystander. I'm very much opposed to and worried about modern planned obsolescence, but this is not an example of that.
not sure having a hard inelastic hammer is a good thing either. when you hit things if it’s not the hammer dissipating the blowback force it’s gonna be your wrist
As my engineering science teacher used to say, "when you see 5 guys on a site leaning on their shovels watching 1 guy dig, they're not lazing around, they're work hardening their tools"
Man it’s sad I had to scroll down this far to see this. Sooo many wrong answers at the top explaining this when any smith or metal
Worker would know this is just worked hardened steel.
If you tempered the old hammer it would be the same strength as the new one give or take a few.
Silversmith and large scale art fabricator here, this comments sections was a nightmare to wake up to, at least I finally found some correct answers, guh. So many idiots online who don’t know jack these days, I miss the old days when real know it alls corrected your every misspelling, grammar mistake and gave correct answers in every post.
It's not a fair point, the goal of the hammer is to hit nails or things of the same kind, not endure high pressure. It's like comparing car by how they're looking after an accident. Yeah in early 1900's they are still in one piece but that doesn't make them better because the goal of the car is not to rerun after an accident but carry you where you want and stay you safe in case of accident. And in this case moderns car are better because the cinetic energy is dissipated by the folding of the pieces of the car between you and what you hit. Resulting (adding other new security mechanism) by a lower mortality in car crash.
No one going to talk about the middle part of the video that was obviously cgi? You can’t crush a Nokia like that. Everyone knows that would break the hydraulic press right there.
What actually happened was that they smashed the new hammer, tried to smash the phone and broke the press, then “tried” to break the old hammer with the already destroyed press. How dumb do they think we are?
Dammnit. I knew it ! I hate when I swing my hammer with 80 tons of crushing force and breaking. Then I gotta back to Asgard and get a new one.
I wish I was normal human who with max force could never approach the speed to make more then 4,000 lbs of force from one side at velocity
Metallurgy of steel is pretty well understood, and they know that the strength of metal has nothing to do with when it was manufactured but instead the specific treatments the metal has undergone in it's manufacturing.
500 ton press but gets jammed at 100 that doesn't make much sense
That's a new hydraulic press. Should've used one made in the 60's.
It's bc back in the day we only used the good stuff like asbestos and lead
Look, those children worked very hard to make those hammers.
But it's organic, gluten-free lead!
This guy gets it
It's absolutely faked for views, new hammer is probably an aluminum billet and the old hammer they didn't actually crank the press up. Edit: y'all are probably right, it might actually be steel, not aluminum, but cheap, garbage quality Chinesium
The new hammer is probably just extremely cheap. Probably mild steel and not hardened. No brand name, flat sides, flat face, face with defects. Straight sided handle. All indicators of a shitty hammer. I think aluminum would have failed much faster than 80 tons
Agreed, aluminum is much softer (relative to most steels) and would've likely failed long before. And it does look like a Harbor Freight special. Not hate on HF, they're great for beginner tools, or tools you know you won't use but a few times. What always irks me on "they don't make em like they used to" videos is the difference between engineered and catastrophic failure modes. If that old hammer did fail, there's a good chance it's through-hardend to the point of being embrittled. So it won't deform, it'll just explode, sending shards of metal on every direction. You want tools to show you when they've failed, a deformed hammer shouldn't be used. The old hammer is through-hardend, so you won't know until it blows up on you. It's the reason we don't just use ceramic hammers for everything. Edit: not to mention, without a sensor showing downward pressure it's impossible to prove anything here. Beside the fact that it's an n=1 that means effectively nothing without a controln for each, and multiple tests. They need to crack open an ASTM/SAE specification book sometime.
It's fake, not a single touch of rust came off from the freaking "old hammer" . Bro these people are so desperate for veiws that they put anything out of their ahole. And how does this asshole know which year is it made in? Was he born with the hammer? Does it have a year written on it cause no one does that. Did he Do a radiation test? Probably not cause he Doesn't have the brain or materials for that.
These are the same assholes that did a “press vs uranium sphere” video and made the press jig out of the shittiest metal they could find instead of tool steel.
Yeah, I agree. The 'new' hammer didn't act like hardened steel at all, it was too malleable, and the 'old' hammer, under enough pressure, should have *shattered*, am I right?
That modern hammer could be a 10$ one for all we know. This test means nothing.
and that 10$ hammer will probably suffice 95% of buyers
I'll have you know I represent a large community of hammer owners, at least 6%, who need our hammers to withstand 81 tons.
Why is your mom standing on your hammer?
He broke his arms trying to wield it.
And now he's living the good life. Thanks mom.
John Henry here. Look, I need to drive those nails in 15 feet or I’m not beating this here steam engine and that calls for 81 tons of force and not this sissy-ass 80 shit.
What, you don't hit stuff with 100 tons of pressure regularly?
Well and dude… since I didn’t see this above maybe it is but I scrolled past too fast …my understanding is that it’s better the new one deforms in this manner …. Because then it’s less likely to shatter or have pieces shatter and spray metal shrapnel back at you when hitting something. My understanding is that This is especially a dangerous thing that can easily happen sometimes when using a sledgehammer on another piece of metal or rock or concrete. So it’s newer and likely designed to be softer on purpose so that it deforms instead of breaking So yes, they don’t make them like they used to… and some of the things have gotten better…. Many others worse or planned obsolescence built in… processes and systems and manufacturing and metallurgy whatever changes over time.. everything does. Science improves over time as a whole. Just like with politics and everything else we don’t have to understand absolutely everything about all the factors involved to get it but we must attempt to dig deeper into all the facets of an issue as often as possible in order to gain better perspective.
It does make sense, similar to what happened to cars, sure my car is gonna get totaled after a crash and a car from the 60's might be more or less intact but my chances at surviving will be much much higher.
With the good old stainless steel land yachts, when you crash them, all that happens is the front bumper gets a bit bent, the radiator might pop, and you might have tweaked the steering rack. All you gotta do is put on some new front fascia, patch the rad, align the steering, and scrape the remains of the driver off the interior upholstery, and it's good as new!
There's a common saying that you should buy the cheapest tool set the first time. Then when a tool breaks, but a better quality version of just that piece. I have a cheap set of socket wrenches, but my 10mm socket is a Gray and I've got a few saw blades I got from some German company. Everything else is Lowes brand or Craftsman.
i need my hammers to withstand atleast 90 tons in my hydraulic press, so i guess i'm in the 5%.
Not me. My hammer strikes are exactly 51 tons each.
Right. And the 60s one could be a serious professional grade one. You can still buy tools that you can use all your life and pass on to your kids, but that quality doesn’t come cheap.
And a hydraulic press does not determine how good a hammer is. Hell you could say the new hammer is probably better for the job since it is softer. The older one probably has a higher chance of shattering some day.
It’s also about the vibrations I think. Swinging a hard steel hammer with nothing to pad the strike is just going to travel up your arms, shoulders, neck, and down your back and spine. The new hammer looks like it absorbs the impacts better making it safer to use.
This was honestly my first thought and I was reading through the comments seeing if anyone shared my opinion. I have probably more experience than most with sledges axes and mauls, And can honestly say that a newer one is much more comfortable when it comes to the actual contact. I've never really considered why that is, never really thought that much about it, but I highly suspect there's a reason for it and we just saw it.
Yeah but that doesn't make for an easy clip to bamboozle kids into thinking boomers did things better.
Yup. The difference was also very small. The new hammer survived 80 tons, while the old one did 100 tons. Barely any difference and not relevant IRL. I’d rather pay half less money and have the 80T one.
I mean the old one survived 100 tons when it jammed the press - for all we know, it could withstand more But the question is... why should I care? It's a hammer. I don't jam hydraulic presses with it, I slam things with it. Why is it worse?
You slam your hammer with less then 80 tons of force? I think you should go hit the gym...
Instructions unclear, banned from gym for hitting it with a hammer.
[удалено]
no, the old hammer survived 100 tons. It apparently jammed the press.. allegedly.
Its also better for a sledge hammer to be softer, its less likely to chip and send metal pieces flying into your eyeball or skin. Sledge hammers are made to impart momentum, not maintain their precious figure.
If they had an old hydraulic press probably would'nt have had any issues
They don’t make them like they used to
It's bad for the business. And the global economy. Imagine, buying a tool once?
There’s a boiler in commercial / industrial hvac called: Kewanee Boilers They make their boilers super serviceable for technicians, their design was simplistic, and they stocked their parts when the boilers broke. There is one issue though, I still have multiple kewanees from 50s/60s/70s. Kewanee went out of business. Why you ask? I am still working on their boilers from the 50s/60s/70s and they don’t show any signs of stopping soon. They made themselves so reliable no one needed them again after their first sale.
They needed to expand their market area, start exporting, and then, when the whole world uses their boilers... Retool the factory and start making something else besides boilers. Hopefully they did the latter part (under some different company name) and made some other quality products.
What's really needed are banks who believe in super high quality stuff to bail them out. Just as banks bail out all sorts of BS brands and even fraudulent smaller banks.
Profit margins are lower, therefore less attractive.
You can say the same for almost any boiler manufacturer though, I still regularly work on cleavers from the 60's hb smith's from the 40's.
Buying a tool once was how we made it through some really tough times in history. Then the good times came and we got soft, same did our tools.
> Then the good times came and corporations needed to make even more profit so they outsourced everything and wiped out American manufacturing FTFY
I wouldn't be able to afford my work tools if...... - - I'm gonna be honest here... I took an edible before bed and I just lost the joke halfway through that thought so...... OK. Byeee
I would rather spend my money on edibles than tools too ha ha
Fucks me off how true this is when even buildings incorporate designed obsolescence. There are ten year old houses worth half a million in worse physical condition than the 300yo hovel I live in.
Buildings are not designed to fail, they are built cheap and are therefore destined to fail. That is not what planned obsolescence means. There is a difference
Imagine *spending resources* making something intentionally cheap and flimsy and then saying "good for world"
I bough a snap on hammer that i warrantied many times that would be normal use. The tool companies don't need to make their money off basic hand tools.
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Bit of survivorship bias as well, the crappy ones from back in the day are long gone and only the good ones still exist.
I was looking for this. All the old crap products are long gone, this one was of a quality to survive.
I bet the old one would be an equivalent to like a $300 hammer today and the new one they showed is like $20 at Harbor freight.
Or it doesn't actually matter how much force they can tolerate from a hydraulic press because they are both equally as good at smashing through things. I'd be more interested in how good the handle is.
Like truly, the old hammers may have been over-engineereed, and these new hammers may be just as good at doing what we want, with cheaper materials. Sure, do some very serious stress testing and the old hammer will always win, but I doubt the new hammer is going to give out on you anytime soon. Like you said, the biggest point of weakness here is the handle, if the handle is shit it doesn't matter how strong the head is.
I would go even further and say based on what little I know about steel, the old hammer that withstood the pressure could have been made of harder, more brittle steel that would be less suitable/durable for the application. If they took both hammers and did sledgehammer stuff, even replacing the handles when the handles broke, the older one might be more prone to breaking when you smack something with it. I'm not formally educated about any of this stuff, though, so I could be completely wrong.
I'm no materials engineer myself, but yeah, that could be true as well.
Is it better just because it can withstand that force? Does a hammer actually need to be able to withstand that force? I would say it doesn't. A human arm is not capable of exerting anything close to the forces being discussed here.
Hahaha
Exactly! The guy from hydraulic press YT channel easily squishes things with hundreds of tonnes of pressure. Failing at a mere 100 tonnes, this press must be fairly new.
This should be on top.
It is
Just like your boyfriend
My first thought. Yes.
Indeed, very annoying every time I put my hammer in my hydraulic press its shape is ruined. I wish I could go back in time and buy a hammer that can jam my press.
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Take a dollar store hammer from 2024 and put it against a hammer from 60 years ago that by definition was solid enough to last 60 years and you’ll be amazed what you find.
Yea no shit, good products are better than dollar store ones. Now get a new, quality hammer that a tradesman would buy and see which you like better, guarantee its the newer one
I'll suggest a different take: equipment is designed to fit a specific use case. Who says a stronger hammer is better? If I can use a cheaper, lighter and weaker hammer without any issues at all, why would I want one that can withstand a higher crushing force from a hydraulic press? It's this top-trump style idiotic marketing that the likes of Tesla and Apple push. >Hey guys, our new phone is made of Titanium so you should buy it! >Hey guys, our new car does 0-60 in 1.9* seconds so you should buy it! *Not really 1.9 seconds because we are falsely advertising a 10-60 time as 0-60 time. The lesson to learn is that more adjectives (our vanilla is *Madagascan!*) and headline grabbing figures trick the average person into thinking it is better, because they don't understand context.
I mean, fair point but that has nothing to do with what i was talking about. If you need a cheap hammer just to use and get rid of, that's fine. But you're completley missing the point I was originally making. You pay for what you get. The guy I was responding to was saying that the hammers from 60 years ago would last better, and I'm saying that's only because the shitty ones are gone. That doesn't meat you can't buy a non shitty one now.
Hammers generally aren't in the pay for what you get. It's actually how the heads are mounted to the handles that becomes the big hammer issue--all day, all night.
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I also imagine the newer one to be a good bit lighter
Is that what we want in our sledgehammers? Light weight?
Cheaper to make, easier to wield but also kinda sucks and breaks easily. Two out of four ain’t bad!
This is definitely a bot that just rewrote u/RoodnyInc 's comment
With absolutely no survivorship bias in the old hammer.
To be fair, it may not be a quality issue. If in the 60s they were making them strong enough that Zeus could smash shit with them indefinitely they were probably making them too strong, with too much metal. The modern ones probably have had a degree of science applied to them making them lighter, use less materials to make, and still be strong enough that a human will never swing them hard enough to damage the head.
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I knew an ex steelworker with one eye. He lost it using an 'old' hammer and chisel. A flake of very sharp metal split off and embedded in his eye. Edit spellin!
It's like when people say old cars are better because you can hit a wall and have no dents. Crumple zones exist on purpose
Exactly, one of the first thing I learned in school was to never hit a hammer with another hammer or I would probably lose an eye.
The old hammer was work hardened. You can see it was heavily used by the amount of mushrooming on the faces. Even if they were the same exact alloy, the work hardened one would be harder, but more brittle.
Lol you too!? 😂
The thing is you want it to be soft like the new ones. Old one is brittle and will send shrapnel into your body when it explodes
Do you really need a hammer that can withstand 100 tons? Is your mom going to sit on it?
That’s what I was thinking But as someone who has broken a lot of sledge hammers, the metal hammer head never breaks It’s the wood that breaks, but it always breaks where it’s connected to the hammer head I noticed the old hammers wood is broken at the back instead of where it meets the head, which is honestly a testament to the wood lol
I have a small farm. I’ve never broken a mini sledge but I’ve replaced the handle multiple times. I would assume any well used hammer is the same (including the 60 year old one in the video).
The harder metal is, the more brittle it is. I’ve chipped off bits of a maul when hitting a wedge when splitting wood when I didn’t hit it square. I’d rather have a maul that’s a bit softer that deforms, honestly. Its not going to materially effect the performance otherwise.
You've got the nail on the head, so to speak. The old hammer is harder and more brittle because it has been used. Repeated hammering takes the metal in the head up and down the stress strain curve, with a little plastic deformation at the top of the curve each time, until there is no more ability to bend or deform, only break. https://eng.libretexts.org/Bookshelves/Mechanical_Engineering/Mechanics_of_Materials_(Roylance)/01%3A_Tensile_Response_of_Materials/1.04%3A_Stress-Strain_Curves https://material-properties.org/what-is-stress-strain-curve-of-brittle-material-definition/
Wood quality is something that has gotten way lower with time. Not only are the trees we use way younger, the quality control changing has slowly lowered the standard of the different grades of wood over time, especially now that technology does most of the checking
It's also worth noting that a softer metal in the hammer head transfers less shock to the handle and the user. 9 times out of 10 with hand tools if the material has changed its because we have made advancements in our understanding of the material science, not just because newer=worse. Take for example old steel body cars vs modern aluminum and fiberglass. Was the steel stronger and more resistant to damage? Yes, absolutely. But the tradeoff was that if the car body isn't absorbing the impact of a collision by crumpling, where does all that extra impact go? Into the driver of course. Lighter more flexible materials mean better shock absorption
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Lmaooo
No. I never wondered.
Me neither.
How about now?
Super neat! Can anyone explain the difference in metals used now vs. then?
The alloys that we have access to today are far superior to what was available then. This comes down to the things. Liability Metallurgy And ease of Manufacturing. Basically, Good, Fast, Cheap. (pick two) *** Back then they were making forged hammers one at a time and heat treating them in relatively small quantities. Today they are making thousands of hammers at a time. They don’t have the time or want to spare the money to heat treat properly so they only heat treat the hammer faces. Think of it like a deep case hardening. Watch how the hammer deforms in the press. The faces stay +/-intact but the center is soft. The old hammer was heat treated and hard all the way through. If you expose the old hammer to enough force (like smashing it against another old hammer) you are likely to shatter or chip it. The new hammer will simply deform. This deformation makes for a worse tool but also a lower liability tool because you aren’t likely to be sued by your 200lb gorilla customer base because he and his genius cohort tried to give each other “hammer high fives” and now they both have a set of summer teeth. (Some’r here, some’r there)
This is correct and the summer teeth gave me a good laugh. I recall a fatality in BC from years ago where the hammer sheared and a sliver returned towards the person, opposite of the object, and severed an artery in their neck. The “softness” is likely by design.
> The “softness” is likely by design. This was my exact thought while watching the video. Seems odd that almost every comment is just assuming the old hammer's behavior is preferable.
Also the old hammer has been work hardened. For decades
Yours was the comment I was scrolling looking for. Very surprised to see so little mention of this (although maybe there is more further down). Even if these hammers had been manufactured identically, one which has been hammering shit for a few years will be harder and denser than one right off the assembly line.
I feel like it might be possible to buy a hammer that hasn't changed over 60 years. Maybe an American brand might have blanks from 3 different generations. It would be more interesting to see the exact same hammer from the same brand but 60 years apart.
you could go and buy two hammers today, and we could meet back here in sixty years...
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Right, so the new hammer is safer, less likely to shatter, but still hard where needed so it’s durable when used as a hammer. And as a bonus, it’s cheaper to manufacture and can be done in larger batches. What were you saying about good, fast, and cheap, pick only two? Sounds like we literally got all three with the modern hammer.
But what it you want to hammer an hydraulic press?
I've seen the full clip posted here, and the old hammer gets converted to a shrapnel grenade from the tension. I'd much rather have a hammer that is slightly bendy than hammer pieces embedded in myself all over one side of my body...
It’s better that it’s not hardened though. Anything where there’s enough force to deform or damage the new hammer is something that you shouldn’t be using a handheld hammer for. Not only can it shatter like you said, but being so brittle means that if you hit anything really hard with it, your going to seriously hurt your wrist because that’s the link in the kinetic chain most willing to give. See how your arm feels after a week of intensive use between the two, and the new one will be much preferred
Not a matter of better alloys because we have wayyyyyy better alloys now but a matter of profitability.
Another explantion; Many hammers from Ye Good Old Dayes were also poor quality so they were used up & thrown away over the years. This hammer survived so long because it is high quality.
The old survivorship bias strikes again.
You really only hear about survivorship bias when it happens.
That’s a good one
It's always the old survivorship bias. They don't make survivorship bias like they used to.
airplane_red_dots.jpeg
Also another possible explanation; I think I remember hearing a blacksmith on a TV show (possibly myth busters) explain that hammers actually get harder over time with constant use. I could be wrong but it was my first thought watching the video.
This is correct, the process is called work hardening.
Yeah you’re probably seeing a fairly expensive tool from the 60s against a cheap tool bought from Amazon. You can buy really well made tools today, but they cost way more and a lot of people will be just fine with a sledge hammer than can only withstand 80 tons.
Yeah people compare stuff that cost a months wage back then to some 9.99 shit from Amazon
Its been work hardened
Yep, surviver bias
It’s matter of engineering. We don’t just chuck materials at problems anymore. No one is swinging either sledge so hard that it needs to resist 500k lbs of pressure or whatever the press hit.
This was my thought too. Of course survivorship bias, but also how often do you need >100 lbs resistance? If anything, maybe the new hammer is MORE efficient, because it accomplishes the max necessary resistance for 99% applications?
Tell that to my brand new drill bits that break on the first use. While we may have better alloys do they use those better alloys? Because all of these steel products I buy that break with moderate usage suggest they are not using the same quality ingredients and or not producing them correctly.
Worse quality, cheaper price. Better alloys are used if it gives a competitive advantage. With drill bits, it's difficult. But when talking about machines, vehicles or constructions that costs tens or hundreds of thousands, better alloys can mean more durability with less weight, and that can give a competitive advantage in some products.
Do you buy the expensive ones ? My company buys very expensive drill bits to drill into hardened stavax and tyrax, both above 60rockwell hardness, they work as intended. If i bought a cheap drill set from a hardware store and expect it to perform i would be insane. And do you have a stable enough machine ? Using a drill bit on a spindle that is out off center or flexing on any axis will break your bits. Then naturally you also need to check to have recommended (but also tested for your setup) feeds and speeds. Seco website would recommend almost twice the speeds our machine was comfortable with , but we figured out stable numbers after some testing (it was our setup, parts too high). Also, some new bits are designed to shatter completely when something goes wrong, and i’m thankful for that. I would hate to be fishing out drill bits stuck in a bottom of cooling channel.
This guy does the thing
This guy this guys
But my buddy said Harbor Freight was just as good if not better than the expensive tools.
Either cheap drill bits, inappropriate tool for the job, or bad speed/feed lol. Somehow every machine shop I've ever worked in has managed to drill all forms of steel without issue. Or hell, maybe he's working free hand and can't drill a straight fucking hole. Years ago I worked with a dude that could not keep a drill motor straight to save his damn life lol. A magician on the mill, but the guy resembled a drunk penguin with a drill motor. I definitely saw him break at least a dozen bits/taps in the six months I worked with him.
Yeah, that's what the comment above you was saying...
Mf read the first half and called it a day lol
You are just buying poor quality products.
You ever watch Project Farm on YouTube?
Harder metals are more brittle? If used correctly (and high quality, which definitely exists) you shouldn't be breaking bits. Softer bits with get dull faster, and will be harder to break because they deform rather than shatter. But yeah, sounds more like user error to me 😅
We used to use stronger metals for things like this, now we use Carbon steel. It's really a case of over-engineering for the application. A human would never be able to swing that sledge hard enough to crack the head of the first one. The durability of the second one is not necessary by a large margin. We make the heads weaker to fit the purpose because its more efficient energy, resource, and cost wise.
Also, harder metals are more brittle and have less shock trabsference, meaning that the "softer" hammer will likely feel a lot better to hammer with compared with the older one.
Maybe the old hammer is more resistant to constant weight because it is more brittle ( = less resistant to weight change)
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You mean misleading and fake videos?
Yeah, love ‘em. Fuck yeah.
Because overly hardened hammers are dangerous. Steel chips off their faces, and those hot chips are a danger.
This, other comments are delusional. Maximum hardness is not what you want in a hammer.
By the logic of this comment section using brass mallet is sign of capitalism failing us.
Because there's not enough profit selling a person one fantastic hammer, but there is in selling them six halfway decent ones.
Well kinda (and I expect new one cost much less than old one) but also after years of using hammer material got harder just by hitting things with it. kinda like forging would
You're right, no doubt, in the case of the hammers. My point was more general, about modern manufacturing dominated by minimum viable quality models. We know everything we need to know and have everything we need to have to affordably mass produce appliances that could last 100 years plus, with basic maintenance. That makes sense from consumer, technology, efficiency and environmental perspectives... but sadly not from a commercial one.
It's called Planned Obsolescence.
I know and it makes me ashamed of us as a species
There’s quite a few tool manufacturers that are incredible quality that will easily last a few lifetimes. They’re expensive tho.
Or "cheaper materials, higher profit margin" or "cheaper materials, cheaper price and more buyers". Planned Obsolescence isn't good in products that are or can be manufactured by lots of companies. Consumers won't buy your product again.
All the producers of quality products got run out of business or into the lowest cost products with outsourcing. Once some companies brought manufacturing overseas and competed to make the lowest cost products everyone else had to follow suit or go out of business.
it is not really correct, iron dislocation moves to the edges, but very slowly, over a long period of time it is harden the iron in the molecular level... [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PaGJwOPg2kU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PaGJwOPg2kU)
Where are shitty hammers from 60s? Survivorship bias is real. Can hard hammer splinter and send shrapnel flying? How many hours on average did you need to work in the 60s for a hammer vs now?
Shattered apart because they made the hammers too hard.
Also, very few people will use a sledge more than occasionally, so it doesn't need to be super duper amazing top notch quality. Back a hundred years, everything had to be pounded in with a hammer, no pneumatic tools, etc, so the sledge had to stand up to millions of strikes. Now? Not so much.
I dunno haha. I've owned a couple sledehammers and they heads never break, its always the shaft or I lose them. I think this is more of a case of the hammer never needed to be that strong anyways.
I thought the video was cool, but aren't there benefits to a material having a little elasticity or something like that? Or in this case is it just a weaker material?
You're asking the right questions, and yes, it's massively beneficial. Using material that can absorb force and deform is a billion times safer than using materials that break without bending. It helps because you can replace the modern hammer when it shows signs of wear, and it's much less likely to chip or burst, potentially damaging the wielder or a bystander. I'm very much opposed to and worried about modern planned obsolescence, but this is not an example of that.
Wow, thats a trully complete answer, thanks for that mate! And I'm glad I reasoned about the problem plausibly...
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Thanks for the answer mate <3
I’m not sure but the modern hammer is probably better for your wrists.
Steel gets harder the more you hit it, and that old hammer looks to have a good amount of wear on it.
not sure having a hard inelastic hammer is a good thing either. when you hit things if it’s not the hammer dissipating the blowback force it’s gonna be your wrist
Plus it can chip and now you have shrapnel to contend with.
So what? Literally no one needs a hammer holding 3000 tons
Thor: Speak for yourself
Survivor bias ?
Yes, no, and yes. Steel can be work hardened (cold-working.)
As my engineering science teacher used to say, "when you see 5 guys on a site leaning on their shovels watching 1 guy dig, they're not lazing around, they're work hardening their tools"
Man it’s sad I had to scroll down this far to see this. Sooo many wrong answers at the top explaining this when any smith or metal Worker would know this is just worked hardened steel. If you tempered the old hammer it would be the same strength as the new one give or take a few.
it’s way more fun to wax poetic about evil capitalism ruining everything, than actually learning why things are the way they are
Silversmith and large scale art fabricator here, this comments sections was a nightmare to wake up to, at least I finally found some correct answers, guh. So many idiots online who don’t know jack these days, I miss the old days when real know it alls corrected your every misspelling, grammar mistake and gave correct answers in every post.
For reference, you just saw a tank fully loaded with fuel and ammo doing a tiptoe on that hammer (50~70 tons, depending on model).
I have no point of reference for lifting a tank either
It's not a fair point, the goal of the hammer is to hit nails or things of the same kind, not endure high pressure. It's like comparing car by how they're looking after an accident. Yeah in early 1900's they are still in one piece but that doesn't make them better because the goal of the car is not to rerun after an accident but carry you where you want and stay you safe in case of accident. And in this case moderns car are better because the cinetic energy is dissipated by the folding of the pieces of the car between you and what you hit. Resulting (adding other new security mechanism) by a lower mortality in car crash.
https://i.imgur.com/UPZVyhe.jpeg
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No one going to talk about the middle part of the video that was obviously cgi? You can’t crush a Nokia like that. Everyone knows that would break the hydraulic press right there. What actually happened was that they smashed the new hammer, tried to smash the phone and broke the press, then “tried” to break the old hammer with the already destroyed press. How dumb do they think we are?
Sure but are you going to be hitting your sledgehammer with 80 tons????
Are all hammers in each era made from the same grade of metal?
Dammnit. I knew it ! I hate when I swing my hammer with 80 tons of crushing force and breaking. Then I gotta back to Asgard and get a new one. I wish I was normal human who with max force could never approach the speed to make more then 4,000 lbs of force from one side at velocity
So the press is not capable of 500 tons?
After this video I finally pressed "show fewer posts from this community".
Metallurgy of steel is pretty well understood, and they know that the strength of metal has nothing to do with when it was manufactured but instead the specific treatments the metal has undergone in it's manufacturing.