Texturing Metal with the Bonny Doon Hammer

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When Phil Poirier designed the Bonny Doon Hammer, he was thinking about the ideal tools for anticlastic and synclastic raising. Since debuting the hammer at last year’s SNAG Conference, we've found that it is capable of much more than that.

Here’s what Rio’s Mark Nelson says about the Bonny Doon Hammer:

"This hammer has pretty much ended up replacing my rawhide and Delrin hammers. The urethane is very tough and yet non-marring, (even less marring than the rawhide or the Delrin) and firm enough to allow me to form nearly any metal. The videos depict it being used primarily on forming stakes but I use it to shape rings on ring mandrels and bracelets. Because the urethane conforms slightly around the mandrel it takes fewer blows to form the metal than it would using other mallets. There is a little bounce when striking but that tends to make the next blow easier in establishing a rhythm."

Curious what other uses you might find for the Bonny Doon Hammer? Watch in the video below, taken during the Bonny Doon workshop at this year’s Rio in Motion, as the hammer brings the pattern from an embossing plate into 30 gauge copper sheet with every strike.

If you enjoyed the video, you might also check out our post from last year where Phil Poirier explains the thought process that led to the creation of this revolutionary hammer.