Blow by blow: hammers and chisels

If I had a hammer ... well, W&W can help. When tinkering and wrenching on the Harley, you often encounter stubborn screws that will resist to loosening, rivet heads to form or cut off, caked-on housing halves to separate, pins to set, cotter pins to drive out - it doesn't always go off without a bit of force in the workshop. For precise yet gentle use of force, there are locksmith's hammers, soft-face mallets, chisels, drivers and center punches from Estwing, Thor, Bahco and Grace.

Locksmith's hammer, soft-face mallet - oh my, what there is ...

The locksmith's hammer is the simple hammer that you usually have in your toolbox: a square, slightly convex face on one side for the tougher work and a narrow fin on the other for the finer parts in a mechanic's life. The soft-face mallet usually has cylindrical striking surfaces made from a soft material: Brass, copper, plastic, rawhide. It is not used to drive screws or nails into holes, but rather to loosen tensions with targeted blows on housing corners or fins, to separate housings, to carefully drive camshaft covers with their camshafts into place: simply any work where you don't want to see any dents in the material as a result.

Pin punch, through punch, center punch - what's the difference?

The center punch is the easiest to explain: with its end ground to a point, it leaves a small dent in the material. The dent is used to center the drill bit, as metal drills do not have a center point and tend to wander on smooth metal surfaces before they remove the first chips. The pin punch has a cylindrically shaped, more or less long blunt end. It is used to drive cotter pins and pins out of narrow holes. The cylindrical end should be handled with care, especially with the thin versions. It bends very easily if the punch is bent. The (hardened) ends also tend to break off when tilted.

The through punch and is also blunt at the end. With its conical shape, it cannot be used to drive a cotter pin completely through a hole. However, it is excellent for driving short pins and breaking loose stuck screws. (If the through punch then stops on the material, you can still use a pin punch and drive the stubborn pin all the way through). The main advantage of the conical shape is that the punch does not break as quickly. It can therefore be blown stronger than a pin punch. And this kind of punch is excellent for "restoring" the screw heads of Phillips screws on Mikuni and Keihin carburetors.