Every craftsperson has their favourite tools, and people have asked me about what I use for my leatherwork. So I thought I would share my response here too.
Here are some examples of hammers that I use in my leatherwork.
The bigger, black one is a classic cobbler’s hammer that I have painstakingly polished to a mirror surface.
The smaller, square-ish one is a copper mallet that I found a car-boot-sale not long ago that also needed a lot of elbow grease before usage.
In some way, it resembles the Japanese double-faced ‘genno’ or ‘gennou’. Although, I have altered my hammer by making one side rounder (the polished side). So now I can use the same hammer for chisels as well as leather.
I also use a small 100g Machinist’s hammer for smaller, more delicate things. And last but not least, the 500g rawhide maul. Very balanced and works like a treat hitting chisels (last pic).