Fretz Circle Texturing Hammer - HMR-15

The Fretz HMR-15 is a texturing hammer with a job most hammers can't do. Instead of one flat face, it has two small concave circle faces, one 6mm and one 4mm, that leave a round imprint with every strike. Overlap those strikes across a piece of silver, copper or gold and you get a swirling, almost hammered-lace texture that's genuinely hard to replicate any other way.

Like every Fretz jewellers hammer, the head is cast from 420 stainless steel and hardened to 50 HRC, so the faces stay crisp strike after strike instead of dulling or deforming. The hardwood handle is shaped and weighted to balance the head, which matters more than it sounds. A hammer that's front-heavy or awkward in the hand makes it much harder to control where each blow lands, and with a texturing hammer like this, control is everything. Too heavy-handed and the texture turns to mush. Too tentative and it barely shows.

This is a finishing tool, used once your piece is already shaped and ready for surface treatment. It pairs naturally with a steel bench block for a solid, unyielding surface to hammer against.

Worth knowing:

• Two face sizes (6mm and 4mm) let you vary the texture within the same piece
• Best suited to soft metals: silver, copper and gold
• Studio tested: jeweller approved