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Tips

neat tool to make your own lead hammer.

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I just knew there was a reason to hoard musket balls. :smirk:
 
Shoot Doc, I had pegged you as more of a mini ball kinda guy.
 
Not nearly as neat, but you can accomplish the same thing with a soup can. Cut a hole in the side to pour out the soup, then trim it to fit snugly around a section of pipe for a handle. Dry the can thoroughly (eg heat it with a torch) and make a nest to hold it with the hole on top. Pour it almost full of molten lead and stick the handle in. After it cools, cut and peel the can away.

Not sure if it's still true, but it used to be that tire shops would give you old wheel weights for the asking. There's probably still 60# of them in my Dad's garage somewhere.

But I just picked up a couple of brass hammers at HF, when they were on sale for about $8 each :laugh:
 
I have a lead press ingot for whacking spinners off. Left over from the days of newspapers and Line-O-Type typesetters. It's a bit pagger'd now, more a conversation piece. It lived in the boot of more than a few MGBs in its time.
 
Lead hammers are great for those wire wheel nuts as they don't leave any marks on the chrome plating. However, there is an alternative that I'm currently using...the Dead Blow Hammer... :hammer:
 
TR3driver said:
Not sure if it's still true, but it used to be that tire shops would give you old wheel weights for the asking. There's probably still 60# of them in my Dad's garage somewhere.
Click to expand...

I knew a bunch of black powder shooters that would do just that. Then set about for the evening making musket balls from the wheel weights.
 
Cool...

Bought the small one & an extra handle as an impulse X-mass gift.
 
I just did similar to "TR3". I melt the lead in a soup can over my Coleman camp stove and stick a piece of water pipe in from the top. Then when it is cool I peel off the steel. It looks a little funny (more like a WW2 German hand grenade) but works on my knock-offs perfectly.
Bill
 
Dead blow hammers are great ( I have one I use a lot myself), but they don't put spinners on nearly as snug, ot take them off as easy, as a good lead hammer. And if you use a lead hammer you'll quickly see how handy a setup like that can be. it dosen't take long to "use-up" a lead hammer. I've also got one of the spinner wrenches from Moss. I still think I like the lead hammer the best.
 
I have an old lead "press ingot" from the lead press newspaper days, it's well beat up but works a treat on spinners. I've had the thing since 1971, now consider it a treasured piece of the past on a couple levels.
 
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