# Help! Is it a hammer or a tuning fork?



## docholladay (Jan 9, 2010)

I have a real gripe about claw hammers these days. I have purchased several claw hammers recently. The reason I have purchased so many is that I would really like to find a good one that doesn't sound like a cheap tuning fork every time that I strike something with it. I have spent anywhere from $5.00 - $40 for a hammer (yes, I know there are choices much more expensive than that, but I refuse to spend $100 for a hammer, considering that I don't make my living with them) and they all ring like a bell when you hit a nail with them. I have also purchased sizes ranging from a 24 oz framing hammer to a 13 oz finishing hammer. I have tried them with wooden, fiberglass and steel handles and that does not seem to make a difference either. I have an old stanley 16 oz hammer that does not make this ringing noise. It does have a pretty nice patina on the head (not rust). Does the patina somehow cancel the vibration that is causing the ringing on all of these new hammers? Is there anything I can do to these hammers to stop this ringing sound? After a few hours of that ringing noise, I'm hearing it in my sleep. Help!


----------



## JuniorJoiner (Dec 24, 2008)

are you sure it is not tinnitus?
estwing hammers have used, and never heard of such a problem.


----------



## Built2Last (Nov 17, 2008)

Do you really drive nails with a hammer, been a while since I used one for that reason!! LOL Guess I'm spoiled with nail guns.


----------



## MrWoody (Jan 25, 2008)

How much have you spent on hammers that you are unhappy with ???


----------



## docholladay (Jan 9, 2010)

Junior, I have tried 2 Estwing hammers. One was a 20 oz finisher and the other a 22 oz framing hammer. Both had the blue rubber anti-vibe handle grips. They both had a rip claw although I have tried some with rip claw and some with curved claw. I think that the 20 oz Estwing was the most annoying of all. It is a very high frequency pitch which of course makes it all the more annoying. I thought about tinnitus. Even had that checked. Maybe I am just hyper sensitive to high frequencies. That might explain my affection for dogs. I guess I should just put my earplugs in my ears.

I just find it odd that 2 old hammers, each with a pretty healthy patina, do not make this ringing noise. Maybe something about the age, lots of use and the patina have served to cancel some of these high frequency vibrations.


----------



## craftsman on the lake (Dec 27, 2008)

Well, personally I like to use a nail gun but I do have two hammers that don't seem to have any issues. They're the yellow, fiberglass handled ones at Home depot for about $7.95. I've used them a lot and they seem to work well without noticeable vibration.


----------



## rance (Sep 30, 2009)

Use a Lie-Nielsen hand plane. I bet they don't ring.


----------



## manumurf (Mar 4, 2010)

But getting them to stay on the handle is a bitch.


----------



## JAGWAH (Dec 15, 2009)

Seriously consider the tinnitus possibility.

I have had tons of hammers. I have never noticed a ringing except when I find myself hammering near steel structure and occassionally miss.

I have owned at one time or other quite a few, enough to know a cheap hammer isn't neccessarily a bad hammer nor is and expensive hammer a good hammer.

I now use a 17oz Douglas and find it to be the best hammer I've ever had. But there again I've never ran into this noise you speak of.

As to patina or age understand a hammer can fail after long use and should be replaced. People use hammers far longer than they should. Metal stresses and fatigues and small chips can fly off causing serious eye injury.

Be careful using an old hammer.


----------



## BillWhite (Jul 23, 2007)

Jagwah, I will quote you when I buy a new leather gripped Estwing (if I can find one locally). Maggie will want to know why I need a new hammer when I have a perfectly good, much used 1978 Stanley 16 oz.
Bill


----------



## FJDIII (Dec 20, 2007)

Can't imagine that this would be an issue unless you used it for hours framing. Framed for 20 years mostly hand nailing and never really had any problems with the pinging that you speak of. There were other guys on the crew that would get a hammer like that from time to time. I always used a Crafstman 20 oz. wood handled framing hammer. If it got broken it went back if it wore out it went back. Replaced quite a few hammers in 20 years!


----------



## roman (Sep 28, 2007)

ear plugs and get some one else to do the nailing ?


----------



## roman (Sep 28, 2007)

when you hit a bell it goes bang, ding, dong…...

when you squeeze the trigger on a rifle…............bang

drop a book to the floor…............bang

hit a baseball witha baseball bat…...............bang
golfball….............bang

I think it has something to do with the laws of physics and I have yet to hear a hammer, be it a free junker or the 300 dollar titanium framing hammer, that when struck down upon a nail…....that it didnt make a, "ting, ding, dong, bang," type sound.

maybe you have that tendenitous, or that ringing illness some folks get in their ear?


----------



## Dennisgrosen (Nov 14, 2009)

I never had anything like this on my hammers except for one where the handle
also was made of steal covered with rubber all the others are with wooden
ash handles 
after you posted the question I did go down in my basement shop and tryid them
on a anwill all of them and no one of them had any ringing tone in them
even the cheepest craphammers among then (3 I got as gifts from some children but
hold on to them becourse they are gifts) don´t make any ringingnoise
but I will test for it next time I have to buy a hammer so thank´s for bringing
it up 
this is one of the reesent I like with LumberJock you learn so many new thinks
that most peopple even have tought of before

Dennis


----------



## BarbS (Mar 20, 2007)

Could it be the nails? Have you tried that variable, using different ones to see if the ringing is centered there, rather than the hammers?


----------



## TopamaxSurvivor (May 2, 2008)

The better hammers have a tuning fork to cancel out vibrations. Mosat of us who use hammers regularly can't hear it ;-))


----------



## fkconst (Feb 5, 2015)

I have always used Estwings…i love them..however, recently i purchased one that was exceptionally "ringy"...it wasn't just me..a coworker got to the point where he couldn't stand to hear me strike an object…it seemed to get worse with time…as a longtime owner of them i can say that it's not an issue of patina or the object that is struck…it's something in the design or steel composition..i could smack a piece of wood and make a dog yelp…it was bad enough that i replaced it…in doing so, i pulled all the estwings off the shelf…laid out a testing area with various cat's paws and spent 15 minutes striking various tools with various hammers to find one that didn't ring….there were 4 available…3 were ringy…i bought the 4th…best i could tell, it came from where the rubber handle ended and the steel began….apparently something has changed in composition or design….i always check levels against one another before buying….i guess now i will have to test hammers as well….you don't have some strange condition…some hammers just ring…you're not crazy…my guess is a minor change in design, length or composition as i never had that issue previously… i would have just switched brands, but i've had them most of my life and i'm a creature of habit


----------



## Steve_W (Mar 12, 2014)

Wish I could help you, but after forty years as a carpenter everything rings.


----------



## Samdog (Sep 30, 2012)

The better hammers have a tuning fork to cancel out vibrations. Mosat of us who use hammers regularly can't hear it ;-))

-"some old things are lovely, warm still with life … of the forgotten men who made them." - D.H. Lawrence
Quote

Have you tried rubber nails. I think you can get them at HF.


----------



## Ghidrah (Jan 20, 2015)

Estwings have always sung, that's what everyone called them as far back as the early 80s. The singing didn't bother me what did bother me was the inability to curl a nail out of wood without rolling the shaft. Their longer framing hammers didn't have enough shaft thickness to withstand nail curling. I bought one and it got a flying lesson ending up in the woods.

I didn't like wooden handles, they got too slippery in the summer. Fiberglass shafts splintered after repeatedly missing the mark or sliding off nails. I the results of what can happen when a shard of fiberglass slides up into a palm or forearm. Rocket brand framing hammers, (metal tube shaft) didn't sing, could curl nails till dooms day and had a rubber handle cover to prevent slippage. The issue with Rockets was a tired framer missing the nail too many times could dent the shaft close to the head enough to separate from the head.

"Do not try and bend the hammer, that's impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth…there is no hammer. Then you will see it is not the hammer that bends, it is only yourself.


----------



## daddywoofdawg (Feb 1, 2014)

are the hammers smooth headed or do they have a rough cast look I have heard those ring.


----------



## waho6o9 (May 6, 2011)

5.99 Harbor Freight waffle hammer works well.


----------



## Garbanzolasvegas (Jan 15, 2015)

> The better hammers have a tuning fork to cancel out vibrations. Mosat of us who use hammers regularly can t hear it ;-))
> 
> - TopamaxSurvivor


What was that?


----------



## bold1 (May 5, 2013)

Maybe you are one of those people whose hearing runs out of the normal range. I worked with a guy that could tell when we would blow a dog whistle, when we were out of sight. He said it was an annoying buzz in his ear to him. None of the rest of the crew could tell when it was blown. He also didn't like some sirens, said they actually hurt his ears.


----------



## baldric (Dec 13, 2014)

My old hammer is nearly a hundred years old, all its had is three new shafts and two new heads!


----------



## Bill7255 (Feb 23, 2012)

Just driving nails, use ball peen. And have a stanly wonder bar for the bent ones


----------



## emart (Mar 16, 2011)

realistically if it is an old hammer and does not ring it likely has micro-cracks in the metal. when solid metal does not ring it is either some really scuzzy alloy or it has some defect inside it that you cannot see.

wear ear plugs I have the same ringing problem if you have tinnitus it doesnt take must to cause the ringing to happen.


----------



## Ghidrah (Jan 20, 2015)

The waffle marks on the real wooden shafted framing hammers 28 and 32 oz were used most by timber framers when I was new to the trade. I got into it as pneumatics were being adopted by the gang crews and gypsy framers. The best framers could sink a 12 or 16d spike in 3, the heavy waffle marks helped counter sink. A spiker did it in 1, do the math. I also had the privilege to see the results of waffled fingers and thumbs, smooth heads hurt more than enough. I never owned a waffle head.


----------



## TopamaxSurvivor (May 2, 2008)

> The better hammers have a tuning fork to cancel out vibrations. Mosat of us who use hammers regularly can t hear it ;-))
> 
> - TopamaxSurvivor
> 
> ...


http://www.wickes.co.uk/Stanley-Fatmax-XL-Anti-Vibration-Curved-Claw-Hammer-20oz/p/215891


----------



## Loren (May 30, 2008)

I dunno but maybe drilling some holes in the hammer
head and filling them or not with something might help.

Anvils that ring are said to have superior rebound. I 
don't believe modern blacksmiths agree with that
entirely. Ringing anvils are pretty annoying but a
blown out shoulder is even more so.


----------



## emart (Mar 16, 2011)

> Anvils that ring are said to have superior rebound. I
> don t believe modern blacksmiths agree with that
> entirely. Ringing anvils are pretty annoying but a
> blown out shoulder is even more so.
> ...


actually if an anvil does not ring it means there is either a severe crack in the metal or it was made from a poor casting. high rebound means the difference between hard work(high rebound) and miserable work(no rebound) because you have to work much harder for the same result. I did a lot of research before I bought my blacksmithing tools.


----------



## Dark_Lightning (Nov 20, 2009)

Ringing is how one can tell that a hammered-in part is seated. It sounds hollow until it is seated. For that reason, I would suspect a hammer that did not ring of being cracked, as has been mentioned. But that is a mechanical thing, not necessarily a wood working thing. I do notice that my hammers ring while doing framing in particular; it doesn't bother me- I just use earplugs. After years of working on machinery and drag racing with open headers, I do have tinnitus. For my non-house-framing wood working (boxes and cabinets), I use pin and brad nailers. No ping there. But I still use hearing protection.


----------



## Dark_Lightning (Nov 20, 2009)

> The better hammers have a tuning fork to cancel out vibrations. Mosat of us who use hammers regularly can t hear it ;-))
> 
> - TopamaxSurvivor
> 
> ...


----------



## wormil (Nov 19, 2011)

FYI, this is a 5 year old thread that got bumped by a newbie.


----------



## TopamaxSurvivor (May 2, 2008)

Easier than starting over ;-) eh?


----------

