Ball Pein Hammer with Wooden Handle, 16 / 24 / 36 oz

Shapes metal and drives punches. It will not pull nails.

You are trying to drift a pin out, spread a rivet or tap a curve into a piece of sheet, and the only thing in the box is a claw hammer. The face is too broad to land where you want it, the claw is dead weight swinging past your knuckles, and there is nothing on that tool that will round metal over.

A ball pein is the hammer that job actually wants. One end is a flat face for driving punches, pin drifts and cold chisels. The other end is the pein — a polished ball that spreads rivet heads, closes pins and works a curve into sheet without cutting it. No claw hammer, club hammer or mallet does the ball end, which is why a fitter keeps one within reach.

Three hammer sizes — 16, 24 and 36 oz — sold one at a time, not as a set. Light for pin punches and small rivets, middle for general fitting and assembly, heavy when you want the mass of the head doing the work instead of your shoulder.

What It Does

• Drives punches and chisels: the flat face is the correct tool for striking a pin punch, a centre punch, a drift or a cold chisel on its struck end.
• Peens and spreads rivets: the rounded ball end mushrooms a rivet head or a soft pin over evenly, which a flat face cannot do.
• Shapes sheet metal: the ball works a dish or a curve into thin material against a former or a bag without cutting through it.
• Closes and stakes pins: useful for staking a pin in place, setting a roll pin flush and starting a taper pin.
• General fitting work: tapping a bearing seat home against a drift, settling a part into a jig, freeing a stuck fastener with a jarring blow.

Key Features

• Three head sizes: the option you pick is the head weight designation — 16 oz, 24 oz or 36 oz. You receive one hammer in that size.
• Flat face, stated: the striking face measures 30 mm across on the smallest, 32 mm on the middle and 38 mm on the largest, per the supplier’s own dimension panel.
• Head length, stated: 110 mm, 115 mm and 130 mm from face to ball across the three sizes.
• Overall length, stated: 330 mm, 360 mm and 365 mm. All of these figures are the supplier’s, marked on its artwork as manually measured. We have not measured or weighed one.
• High carbon steel head: the supplier’s own panel states high carbon steel, forged. It publishes no grade number and no hardness figure, so neither appears on this page.
• Polished head: the supplier describes a surface polishing treatment. That is a finish, not a corrosion rating — bare steel will rust if you leave it wet.
• Wooden handle: the supplier states only “wooden handle” and notes the shade varies between tools. It does not name the timber species, so we do not either.
• Marked with a model code: the head carries the maker’s mark and a model code — NR342301, NR342302 or NR342303 by size — which makes the tool identifiable.
• No standard marked: nothing on the head or the packaging artwork cites an Australian, ISO or EN standard, and no test certificate has been sighted.

Limits

Never strike hardened steel with the hardened face. Hammer face onto another hammer face, or onto the hardened working end of a tool, can chip either one and throw a steel splinter a long way at high speed. Striking a punch or a cold chisel on its struck end is fine — that end is deliberately left softer and is what the tool is designed for. Striking the sharp end, or another hammer, is not. Dress a badly mushroomed punch head back on a grinder before you use it again.

Wear eye protection whenever you strike metal with this. Steel on steel throws fragments, and a hammer is the most common way people put something in their eye in a workshop. That applies to anyone standing nearby as well.

It is not a claw hammer. There is no claw. It will not pull a nail, and it is a poor choice for driving them — the face is small and it will mark the timber.

It is not a club or engineer’s hammer. Do not use it on masonry, concrete, star pickets, tent pegs into rock, or demolition. A lump hammer has a much larger, blunter head built to take that abuse.

It will mark what it hits. The face is hardened steel and it dents anything softer. Where you need a blow that does not mar a machined surface, a soft-face tool such as our pure copper hammer is the right pick.

Head fixing and handle replacement are not stated. The supplier does not say whether the head is wedged, epoxied or pressed on, and does not say whether a replacement handle is available. We have not pulled one apart. Check the head is tight on the handle before every use; if it moves at all, stop using the tool.

The gram weight and the ounce size do not reconcile. The supplier prints an ounce size and, separately, a gram figure that it simply labels “weight”. It never says whether that gram figure is the head alone or the whole tool, and the two numbers do not line up cleanly either way. Both are published in the Specs table exactly as the supplier gives them, and neither has been checked on our scales.

Not a prying or wrecking tool. Do not lever with the handle or use the head as a wedge. Wooden handles break across the grain when they are loaded sideways.

Q & A

Am I buying one hammer or all three?

One. You choose a size and you receive that single hammer at the price shown. There is no three-piece set on this page.

Ball pein or ball peen — which is it?

Both spellings name the same tool. Pein is the usual spelling on Australian and British trade counters, peen is the usual American one. Nothing about the tool changes.

How heavy is the head, exactly?

The honest answer is that we cannot tell you to the gram. A hammer head weight of 16, 24 or 36 oz converts to roughly 454 g, 680 g and 1.02 kg. The supplier’s own dimension panel separately lists 620 g, 735 g and 1.11 kg against those same three sizes, without saying whether that is the head or the complete tool. If it were the whole tool the handle would have to weigh 166 g, 55 g and 89 g respectively, which is not consistent. We publish both sets of figures in the Specs table and label which is which rather than pick one and present it as fact.

Can I hit a cold chisel or a punch with it?

Yes — that is one of the jobs it is built for. Strike the struck end squarely, keep your eye on the tool rather than the hammer, and wear eye protection. Never bring it down on another hammer face or on the cutting or hardened end of a tool.

Which size should I start with?

For most people the 24 oz hammer is the useful middle. A 16 oz hammer suits small pin punches, light riveting and jewellery-scale work where control matters more than force. The 36 oz hammer is for heavier drifting and fitting, and it is tiring to use for fine work.

Is it certified to any Australian standard?

No. No standard is marked on the head or quoted by the supplier, and no test certificate has been sighted. If your workplace requires hand tools marked to a particular standard, this one will not satisfy that check.

How long will it take to arrive?

Allow 10 to 14 days from the day you order, and up to three weeks for regional and remote addresses. Delivery is free to Australia and New Zealand.

Specs

Every dimension below is the supplier’s own stated figure for each hammer size, taken from its dimension panel, which is marked as manually measured. Nothing here has been measured or weighed by us.