Things coincide.  A bit of talk on best weight for a Warrington Hammer.  A Warrington Hammer is a Cross Peen designed for driving tacks.  The idea is that the thin end can slide between your fingers as you hold a tack.   It has been on my list of classic tools, but until I read Paul Sellers’ superb article on them, I did not have any good criteria for choosing one.  He likes them from 8 to 10 oz, so this gave me a starting point.

While I don’t have a need for one, I do drive tacks and this may be a safer and more efficient way to drive them.  So I may actually need one without knowing.  There have been a few discussions of them, so the impulse urge to have one is suddenly there.

Meanwhile, I have an old couch that is going to be a pain to get through the door.  I brought it in, back when my back allowed me all sorts of contortions, but now I have to be careful.  So I am going to take the couch apart first.   This couch is a leather couch I got in exchange for some programming ages ago.  Taking it apart reveals all sorts of weirdness.  It is made of ash, red oak, plywood and pine pinned together with zillions of tacks, nails, staples, brads and odd fittings.    No saw will survive this long and the angles prevent use.  So I decided to hack it apart.  Not by swinging an axe, but by putting a cheap axe/chisel/blade down and pounding it with a 3lb sledge.    With that and a few pry bars, I figured i could do it safely.

So I go to a dollar store that has a bunch of cheap odd tools, all for $1.09 each.   I get a couple of hatches and a couple of hammers to sharpen into handled wedge/chisels.

So first I try pounding a hatchet into a joint.

The axe, as you can see fractured.  This tool is total junk, more dangerous than functional.  I will be throwing both axes away.

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