This is one of my Pneumatic Planishing Hammers. If you have never seen one I wouldn't be surprised. What you see is three different "bodies" (I don't know what else to call them) and one "head" that is the "hammer". The hammer has a dolly on it. The other dolly is on the bottom "body". When you push down on the handle (with compressed air hooked up to the tool) the upper dolly comes down on top of the metal that you have between the two dollies. With further pressing of the handle the hammer starts going. It is adjustable from many times a second up to every second or so. It is sort of like an air chisel in design. When you hammer with an "on dolly" technique very rapidly it is called "planishing" (I assume you know this, I am talking to those who don't). This is one very cool tool. I don't fab things like I use to when I had my shop so it sits in my garage (along with another one).
What it can do is PERFECTLY smooth out a damaged piece of metal. The last time I used it was on my brothers old Harley 45 fender. It had about 25 holes of different sizes I had to weld up, along with very severe "wrinkles" from previous damage and repairs. It smoothed out most of the damage to a mirror like finish.

This tool is about 50 years old and was made by Chicago pneumatic. They also made a floor mount version which I will make some day to hold this one.

By the way, I bought it for $25.00 at a "going out of business sale" at a near by body shop. One just sold like this on EBay for over $1,500.00.

http://members.aol.com/buickfam/planishinghammer.jpg

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1965 Buick Gran Sport Convertible
1965 Buick Skylark H/T
"Fan of most anything that moves human beings"

Martin, I got to say Damn thats pretty cool!

Am sitting here thinking what odd and cool things Ive got sitting in my box, pretty much everything you have or seen. But the coolest thing in there by far is that calender I conned out of the Snap-on guy http://www.chevelles.com/forum/biggrin.gif

Those going out of business sales are great. I scored two old air frame jacks, you know the type that looks like a forklift in the front and lifts straight up on the frames. Bought them and turned them into an adjustable rotterisse, all for 150 bucks. Have a good one Martin...Eric

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1970 chevelle
1970 chevelle SS455 not a typo its a BUICK BABY
1949 and 1972 chevy trucks
http://briefcase.yahoo.com/bc/sevt_chevelles

I have used one of those and it is an awesome tool.I was repairing a lower bedside on a newer chevy truck when the guy i was working for at the time, who is about 70 years old, pulls that thing out and proceeded to school me on metal straightening.I cant beleive that someone doesn't make some version of that tool anymore.I would love to get my hands on one.

They are being made today by a few different manufactures. Ron Covell has one of them. I will try to get info for you.

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1965 Buick Gran Sport Convertible
1965 Buick Skylark H/T
"Fan of most anything that moves human beings"

Hey Martin, I was just talking to a old body shop guy at work and he knew exactly what that was. He said he has a hot lead spray gun that they used in the GM factory to do joints with.

I traded a Ruger 10/22 for an ARC dent puller. It's the type that doesn't require studs. My brother-in-law used to be sales rep for them in the San Francisco bay area and he had a few demos that he used to take to swap meets and car shows. He wanted a 22 rifle, I needed a dent puller, so we made the trade!

does that work well around curves? It seems like it would just hammer the metal flat.

There are a number of different dies ("dollies and hammers") that are flat as well as rounded. So it will fit many different shapes. In fact the ones that are one the tool in the photo are actually pretty rounded.

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1965 Buick Gran Sport Convertible
1965 Buick Skylark H/T
"Fan of most anything that moves human beings"

Martin, I would love it if you could get some info on that thing. Ive read tons of articles writing by Ron, that tool seems like the cat's meow. What else you got?...Eric

Different types of these are still made, and range in price from $650 to $2500. The best one out there is made by Clay Cook www.ccook.com, (http://www.ccook.com,) cost about $2600 and is used by many of the NASCAR guys to fab bodies. He still makes an exact replica of the full sized floor model as well as a 24" floor/hand model. They are big bucks, but they are nice. Kent White www.tinmantech.com (http://www.tinmantech.com) has various floor versions of these. Eastwood just started carrying a decent bench mount version for about $650. I understand it to be a nice unit. MARTINSR, I did not know that Ron Covell was doing anything with these.

Eric, I have all kinds of things up my sleeve. http://www.chevelles.com/forum/smile.gif I will post some more. Some are not that expensive and very useful while doing restoration.


dselko, I had a catalog with COVELL's version but I'll be darned if I can find it. I have about ten of them but not the one I saw it in. It was made using an air chisel mounted solidly carrying the "hammer".


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1965 Buick Gran Sport Convertible
1965 Buick Skylark H/T
"Fan of most anything that moves human beings"