Tuning Hammer Tips

[John Musselwhite]

At 08:16 AM 24/02/96 -0700, you wrote:
>
>Sy Zabrocki writes;
>
>>
>Tuning hammer tips wear out after a couple years or so.
>
>    I don't know what kind of tips are sold today, because I am still using
>the same one I began with 20 years ago.

I'm still using the two Hale hammers my grandfather bought in the  early
twenties for himself and my father. One has a four inch head (including the
short tip) at 10 degrees and the other is a two inch head.  The long one, to
my knowledge and my father's recollections, still has the original tip and
it still fits most pins perfectly. I replaced the short tip with a new tip
in 1981, but it took three attempts to find one that was good.

In some respects I shouldn't be using these hammers as they have some
personal historical value, but having broken two modern hammers which never
did "feel" right I've gone back to the ones made 70 years ago. I'm still
using tools older than that though, simply because they work better than
some of their modern equivalents. Mind you, that could be mere nostalgia
rather than actual fact. B-})

I still haven't seen any modern tuning hammer that is of the same high
quality those 70 year-old Hales though. They are elegant as well as
functional and a joy to use.

                John
John Musselwhite, RPT
Calgary, Alberta Canada
musselj@cadvision.com