Cross Peen & Straight Peen Hammers: Drawing Steel

Before there were rounding-hammer debates there was the cross peen: the standard European smith’s hammer for centuries, and still the most efficient hand tool ever devised for one essential job — moving steel in a chosen direction instead of every direction.

Peen Physics

A wedge-shaped peen concentrates the blow along a line. Steel flows away from that line — perpendicular to the wedge — and barely spreads along it. Cross peen (wedge perpendicular to the handle): each blow draws the stock LENGTHWISE as you work along the bar. Straight peen (wedge parallel): the same wedge now spreads stock SIDEWAYS — widening a blade, fanning an axe cheek. One head geometry, rotated ninety degrees, two different tools. The flat face on the other side then dresses out the peen’s corrugations.

The Working Rhythm

Classic drawing: walk overlapping peen blows down the hot zone like a tiny power hammer — the surface corrugates as the bar lengthens visibly — then flip to the flat face and settle the ridges smooth before the heat dies. This peen-then-planish cycle draws faster than flat-face forging by a wide margin, and it is the manual ancestor of every fullering die. It also teaches blade forging’s core skill: managing WHERE mass goes, the difference between forging a blade and merely flattening a bar, as the step-by-step guide shows in sequence.

National Patterns

The traditions differ mostly in head shape and balance: German pattern — square-ish body, stout peen, the hardware-store archetype; Swedish pattern — slimmer, longer head with more mass behind the face; French pattern — distinctive swept profile with the face set forward. Working differences are modest; buy (or forge) whichever balance your arm likes, in the same 2–2.5 pound blade-work sweet spot from the hammer field guide.

Dressing the Peen

An out-of-the-box peen is usually too sharp — a chisel that cuts cold shuts into your work. Radius it: a clean rounded ridge, something like a dowel’s curve, polished smooth. Sharper radius = faster drawing and rougher surface; fuller radius = slower and cleaner. Many smiths keep two cross peens dressed at different radii and let that be the speed control.

On Blades Specifically

Cross peen work shines at tang drawing, distal taper, and stretching bevels along the blade; straight peen work at widening — spreading a too-narrow blank instead of starting over. For thin near-final bevels, peens hand off to the dog head or the rounding hammer’s flat; the wedge that moves 1/2-inch stock beautifully leaves ridges thin stock cannot afford. Peen for mass movement, flat for finish — the oldest division of labor in the craft.