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Why a hammer earns its place in your pack

Most fell walkers carry a repair kit built around tape, cable ties and a spare buckle. Useful, all of it. But none of those will do much for a tent peg that has folded over at forty-five degrees after a Lakeland gale, or a V-section stake that has gone banana-shaped after being driven into a hidden rock. You can wrestle it straight with a boot heel, or bend it back over a gatepost with your hands, but you will leave kinks in the metal that only make the next bend worse.

A small blacksmith's hammer changes that. Thirty seconds on a flat stone and a bent peg returns to something close to true. It also handles stove parts, buckled pole sleeves, tin mugs, billy can rims and the light metalwork that seems to fail at exactly the wrong moment. The trick is choosing the right one, because a blacksmith's hammer is not a claw hammer with a different name.

Head weight: the numbers that actually matter

Blacksmith's hammers are traditionally sold by the pound, so you will see 1lb, 1½lb, 2lb and 2½lb heads. For a rucksack repair kit, you want the lighter end. A 1lb head — roughly 450g — is the sweet spot. It carries enough momentum to move an aluminium stake or a bent steel peg without the wallop that folds thin metal in half.

• 250–350g: lovely for wire pegs, titanium stakes and fine fettling, but you will swing it twice as often.
• 400–500g: the all-rounder. Straightens V-section aluminium, drives a peg, copes with a buckled stove leg.
• 700g and up: keep it in the vehicle or base-camp box. In a pack it becomes a liability on a long day.

Remember that a heavier hammer is not automatically kinder to soft metal. Momentum does the work, not brute force, and a controlled 450g blow is far less damaging than a weary, inaccurate swing with a 900g head.

Handle length: leverage versus packability

A traditional blacksmith's handle runs 300–400mm. For hill use, look for around 300–330mm with a 400–500g head. That gives you enough whip to strike accurately one-handed while still sliding into a side pocket. Shorten the handle much below 280mm and control suffers badly; lengthen it past 350mm and you are carrying a hammer that will not sit happily in a pack.

Examine the handle before you buy. Hickory or ash is what you want, with straight grain running the length of the shaft. A handle with grain running out to one side will snap at the neck within a season. Check that the head is seated tight — a wedge or epoxy-set head that shifts by a millimetre is a head that will fly off. Give the handle a wipe of boiled linseed oil once a year and keep it out of the bothy fire.

Face shape: where most people get it wrong

Look at the business end. A perfectly flat face is common on cheap hammers and it is the wrong shape for thin metal. A dead-flat face strikes with its edges as much as its centre, leaving sharp crescent dents that become stress risers. You want a slightly domed, or crowned, face — the curve spreads the blow and leaves a smoother surface.

The cross-peen hammer is the practical choice. The flat face does the straightening and the peg-driving; the wedge-shaped peen reaches into tight spots, works along the length of a bent stake, and can be used to draw metal back into shape rather than just flatten it. A ball-peen is a reasonable second best for rounding out dents in a mug or a stove windshield, but the narrow peen is less useful on flat stock.

Whatever you choose, dress the edges. Take a fine file and put a 1–2mm chamfer around the face. This single job, five minutes at the kitchen table, is the difference between a hammer that chips and one that lasts. A chipped face on hardened steel can throw fragments, so never use a hammer with a visibly damaged edge.

Matching the hammer to the metal

Aluminium work-hardens. Straighten a bent stake cold once or twice and it will snap on the third attempt. If the bend is gentle, a few light taps are fine. If it is severe, warm the metal first — a small fire, a gas stove on low, or even a hot water bath will help. A useful trick: rub the aluminium with a bar of soap or a matchstick. When the blackening burns off, it is around 350°C and ready to work, then cool it slowly.

Titanium stakes tolerate cold straightening better but resent heat. Steel rock stakes will take a cold beating happily. Whatever you are working on, find something solid underneath — a flat granite boulder, a hardwood billet, or the flat of a bothy bench if you have permission. Hammering against a soft surface just bends the metal into the softness.

Kit, care and a little hillcraft

Wrap the head in a scrap of inner tube or a small leather sheath so it does not wear through your pack or knock dents in a stove. Carry a pair of thin gloves and a set of safety glasses; flying metal and pinched knuckles are the two most common injuries from this sort of repair. Total weight for a good 450g head on a 300mm handle, wrapped, is around 550–600g. That is a fair trade for a peg that survives the night.

Practise at home. Bend a spare peg deliberately, then straighten it. You will learn quickly that short, accurate taps along the length of the bend beat one heavy blow every time. Out on the hill, that skill turns a frustrating, peg-wrecking pitch into a five-minute fix — and leaves you with a repair kit that genuinely earns its place in the pack.