The Wrong Tools for the Job

The wrong tools for the job can cause more damage than help if you aren’t careful. When working on sheet metal a wrong swing of a hammer, the wrong hammer and dolly can cause damage to your panel that will take 3-4 times as long to fix. You ALWAYS want to match your hammer face and dolly to the shape of the panel your working on. If you’re working on a flat panel this isn’t ever a panel, but as soon as you get into a corner, a curve, or a hard-to-reach area you may need to go outside your simple starter kit of hammers and dollies.

The Eastwood Fairmount tool line are made to our highest standards and can go head to head with some of the best autobody hammers and dollies in the industry. We decided to offer some unique hammers and dollies influenced by the old panel beater days when you HAD to get a panel as smooth as possible before painting. I decided to throw a short list of my favorite intermediate/pro Fairmount Hammers/Dollies that we now offer.

Tight Access Hammers- We decided to make a set of hammers that are stubby on the backside to allow you to get a swing inside a tight or confined area like inside a quarter or a door skin. These are avaialable with a vertical or horizontal curve to them as well as a dead-flat hammer. The high crown hammers are perfect for getting into a tight area or an inside curve where the outside edges of your low crown or flat hammer would hit and gouge or dent the panel. The flat hammer has sharp corners that allow you to get right into a 90 degree corner like at the bottom edge of a door skin where a round hammer couldn’t reach.

Door Knob Dolly- The Fairmount “Door Knob” Dolly is about as ergonomic as a dolly can get AND has countless different curves and surfaces that can be used to fit into a tight area in a panel. I reach for this dolly first when I’m doing flat panel work because the dolly is a nice size and shape for holding when hammering on the flat side. Make sure you get one of these in your arsenal!

Reverse Curve Hammer- Ever lusted after the vintage Snap-On or Blue Point BF-615 reverse curve body hammer but couldn’t stomach the $100+ price tag they often fetch? We took the same concept of having two different high crown heads on the same hammer and made it affordable AND to the same quality as the “good old stuff”. This hammer allows you to get in tight curves or reverse curves like where two panels roll together or in a wheel well or headlight opening. Use this with a matching dolly and you can work areas your normal hammers couldn’t touch!

If you add these few items to your arsenal you can crank up the quality of your work and save some money instead of buying broken, vintage hammers you can get more parts to finish your project!

-Matt/EW