I know both Joel Allen, founder of Stiletto and Todd Douglas Coonrad, founder of Douglas Tool and designer/patent holder for "The Woody" hammer and Dalluge's Titanium hammer. Both guys are top notch great guys and make excellent products. If anyone wasn't aware of it, after Bob Hart lost his business making hammers, he went to work as the National Sales Manager for Todd. Both companys stand behind their products, so that's a big reason why I deal with them.
Here are a couple of pictures of hammers I have and use. The first shows a finish hammer from Shark (Japanese) that is either a 14 or 15 oz and extremely accurate, so much so that at the builders show I went to years ago, where I first got it, I was doing the demo for them for part of the day just because I was amazed how precisely I could sink 16d nails in 2 shots without taking any break. Again, it's marketed more as a finish hammer and no, it's not "The Duck" hammer which is similar.
The 2nd hammer is my 18 oz Douglas finish hammer with smooth face and the 3rd hammer in the picture is my 20 oz Douglas framing hammer with the inverted waffle face (with a new handle - no I didn't break the original). The 4th hammer is the Stiletto 14 oz "meat grinder" as I call it. The union gave it to me as one of the awards for completing my apprenticeship. I never used it because I hate Stiletto's waffle faces. I'll have no fingers left should I hit any and I don't find the hatchet style handle comfortable. I like the semi-hatchet style handle of the Douglas the best.
I'm definitely a fan of the Douglas hammers. I've never broken one, yet I've done serious demo work with the framer. I'll use it like a sledge at times. I've tried many of the Stilettos at shows and my favorites are the 10 oz straight wood handle trim, 12 oz and 14 oz straight wood handle smooth face framers. I also liked the mini T-Bone, but wouldn't get it because of the rubber handle. I never could frame or do demo with rubber grips without getting loads of blisters no matter how much I tried building up my skin. Always love wood handles.
There is a warning with titanium headed hammers. They're very brittle so you're not supposed to hit steel nail pullers, hardened nails and anything else steel. You'll easily chip them. That's always been a concern of mine That's why Stiletto also sells titanium nail pullers. The Ti-Bones have the changeable steel faces so you don't have the same concerns with them, but the claws are still titanium so be careful about using the claw as a hatchet when hitting metal objects in wood or attached to the wood.
The flat heads on the Douglas hammers have allowed me to get in close to do nailing in places where a regularly shaped hammer head wouldn't fit plus the straight claw is so perfect for getting between joined studs or similar pieces. I use it like a hatchet to get a space to pry stuff apart when necessary and there's a lot of leverage using the flat head when pulling out nails. I rarely ever use the side nail puller.
The second picture is of a couple of hammers from my old tool collection. Not sure if they're antiques yet, but you can see that even old time carpenters used 16 oz hammers for general framing and did just fine. The hammer on the right has a replacement handle but the head is quite old.
I'm also going to get and try the Dalluge Titanium smooth face hammer just because it's a Douglas design, which I like and it's lightweight titanium, which I'd love to compare to my others. Todd was supposed to custom make me a framing hammer with reduced weight, because my right hand doesn't swing a hammer as well as it used to. Probably a combination of age and a broken hand six years ago. Todd, I'm still waiting!!!
If you're wondering why so many hammers and I'm still going to get more, why do guys have a dozen or more routers or drills? Same reason. [smile]
