Raising or what?

[historyofwarfare]

What I am trying to do is shape a dome for a pacman ghost I want to make. How I attempted and practiced is I used a claw hammer and a 4 lb dead blow and hammered over the round end of a ball peen hammer. I was disappointed. I seemed to do more flattening than rounding. Advice please.

I got this idea from a picture that I attached. Here is a link in case it's too small or it won't open. http://chestofbooks.com/crafts/metal...ng-A-Bowl.html It looks easy. Looks and practice though are very different.
Raising.jpg
Jeff

[Gene Olson]

Jeff, it is possible with a flat round faced hammer over a round stake, but wedge shaped, cross pein but with a round end, will work better.
The illustration shows a wooden mallet.
That agrees with my experience, sorta. I usually use a 1/2" radius cross pien plastic (HDPE) hammer. That leaves you with fewer dings in the metal to planish out.

G.

[David Gardiner]

You can form a bowl just by raising but it is a lot quicker to do it using hollowing and raising. In this way the metal is part shretched and part shrunk to shape.

David

[historyofwarfare]

A cross pein makes sense. I mean, that's what I've seen used in videos. thanks Gene. Dave, your advice helps also. Now I understand something I was not sure of but still sort of believed. Thanks for the info.

Jeff