Homemade hammer

Take a sledgehammer and wrap an old sweater around it. This is your "shovelglove." Every week day morning, set a timer for 14 minutes. Use the shovelglove to perform shoveling, butter churning, and wood chopping motions until the timer goes off. Stop. Rest on weekends and holidays. Baffled? Intrigued? Charmed? Discuss here.
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botulf2000
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Homemade hammer

Post by botulf2000 » Thu Jun 12, 2008 9:19 am

Hello,

just joined this forum, and thought it might polite to introduce myself with the story of my home-made shovelglove. For about two (maybe three?) month ago I started doing the shovelglove workout. But to do that, I needed a hammer. And since I'm ... what's the word? You know, when you want to make things yourself rather than buy them? Cheap! That's the word, I'm cheap, so I didn't want to go to the store and pay for the hammer. But I had a rattan stick of the right size (about 1 meter long, 40mm diameter), and some concrete/cement mix leftover. So I made some notches in the rattan close to one of the ends, mixed the concrete according to the instructions, poured it into a smallish bucket, stuck the rattan stick in and waited for a few days. I used a canvas bag to cover the concrete lump, and after a short test decided to add a small amount of padding in the bottom of the bag.

Anyway, that's the short story about my home-made shovelglove. It's holding up quite well, it might be a bit on the heavier side at 18-20 pound and made from materials either not used or marked for a trip to the landfill.

/Krister

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reinhard
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Post by reinhard » Thu Jun 12, 2008 3:21 pm

Welcome!

Any chance we could persuade you to post a picture?

Do be careful -- I hate to think what might happen if that 20 pounds of concrete suddenly came flying off. I'm as cheap as the next guy, but 20-30 dollars for hammer head projectile insurance strikes me as a good deal :-)

Reinhard

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botulf2000
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Post by botulf2000 » Fri Jun 13, 2008 10:05 pm

I'm very carefull with my homemade hammer, for a number of reasons. Number one, It's heavy and I don't want to pull anything. Two, it's heavy and I don't want to hit anything. Three, I know who made it...

But pictures? Sure, the pictures are not that great, but I hope they can be seen at:

http://picasaweb.google.com/botulf/SG/p ... 6533089650

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reinhard
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Post by reinhard » Mon Jun 16, 2008 2:35 pm

That's actually significantly more attractive than I'd imagined! Nicely done (aesthetically, at least).

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botulf2000
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Post by botulf2000 » Wed Jun 17, 2009 3:24 pm

Just a short update, the homemade hammer has been retired. The handle started to come loose. Not in a dramatic, weight flying across the room way. But now it's possible to "wiggle" the handle without the weight moving.

So after about one year of service, the homemade hammer has entered service as a doorstop.

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reinhard
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Post by reinhard » Thu Jun 18, 2009 5:32 pm

An honorable tour of duty!

I hope a new (perhaps more conventional) hammer has filled its place?

Reinhard

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botulf2000
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Location: Lycksele, Sweden

Post by botulf2000 » Thu Jun 18, 2009 7:02 pm

Yes, the old hammer didn't enter it's new duty before a replacement was at hand. A changing of the guard, sort of.

The new hammer is storebought, but maybe not conventional. Since I'm still cheap I got the cheapest hammer, so it got a red plastic/glasfibre handle instead of a nice wooden one.

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gratefuldeb67
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Post by gratefuldeb67 » Thu Jun 18, 2009 9:01 pm

Great pic of your home made hammer.
My first boyfriend maaaaany years ago, made his own home made mini sized barbell out of a thick wooden dowel, maybe it was part of a broomstick, and concrete as well.. but he used medium sized, Maxwell House coffee cans to hold the cement in.
I think two of them together weighed about 20 lbs..
Have fun!

8) Debs
There is no Wisdom greater than Kindness

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