Max_Morley wrote on 12/31/69 at 16:00:04:Dead blow works fine, but I prefer a brass hammer as it doesn't peen over the edges of the attack driver (name on the box mine came in years ago). Max
You can bet that tool was made in Japan; because that translation is most certainly "Engrish."
http://www.engrish.com/I've got a few brass hammers too. One large one left over from a place where I worked which required me to drop in a lot of bronze bushings into these gigantic nitrogen over oil suspensions (like a huge McPherson strut).
We had to heat the bore to several hundred degrees with a rosebud, while the bronze bushing sat in a tub of liquid nitrogen. Then when you drop the bushing into the bore, and the temp. equalizes, the resulting interference fit is more tight than any press fit possible.
The reason for the large brass hammers was: if a bushing got crooked while being dropped in, you only had a few seconds to get it straight, and to the bottom of the bore before the temp. started to equalize. Once that happened, and if the bushing wasn't all the way in, you had just boogerd up several thousand dollars of bushing; which had to be cut out; because a 40 ton press wouldn't budge it! Mess that process up often and the boss isn't going to like you much!
Anyways, brass is softer than bronze, and you could whang away hard on the bushings without denting them (much).
The small brass hammers I own are for setting nickle silver frets in the fingerboards of guitars. Once again, the brass is softer and doesn't mess up the alloy frets.
In my 20s I worked in a shop with an old lead man who would cuss you for swinging the sledge hammer like a sissy while he held the drive bar!!! On that job I learned to be a real "steel drivin' man." Never hit the old man once.