I’m preparing to make an oak mailbox and needed a pair of stressed metal bars to curl at the bottom as magazine holders. An article recommended flattening copper pipe, which I did with a big hammer, or a small sledgehammer, or a medium-sized pipe-flattening hammer.

Notable details:

1. LOUD

2. Even thin copper isn’t as maleable as I expected.

3. Old-time blacksmiths must have been ungodly strong, which I already knew, but it really took hammering pipe to make it sink in.

4. At one point I pretended I was Tony Stark in the cave, making something awesome.