Something I absolutely love and always look out for are specialty tradesman's tools.
The real shit that real ones use to get the shit done and get that bread.
This is a setting hammer. The head is about 3 inches long, face is one and a quarter. Little less than a pound. Handle's around 3 ft long.
The purpose of this thing is to reach into a hot forge and set a weld without having to take it out.
You usually see forge welds done on an anvil, with a dramatic shower of sparks--OOH, AHH, monkey brain neuron activation, the whole shebang.
But you're just spraying molten flux everywhere. Putting the piece down on the anvil immediately creates a heat sink. And bringing it out of the forge means anything without flux on is going to oxidize within a second or two.
But--one cool thing about a well prepared forge weld is it takes very little force to make.
So if you can prep your weld in the forge, you can use a setting hammer to reach way in there, line things up, and just...let it drop 2 inches. Weld set. easy peasy
The handle has to be this long because you need some room to manuever and to see, and the forge is cranked to 11 to get the weld hot enough, so you need some space from its mouth.
If you're production welding, or you've put a couple hours into a nice workpiece and really don't want to have to rework it, setting a weld in the forge is a godsend.
Every carpenter, plumber, technician, assembler, welder, etc has little tricks, jigs, special and specific tools that get invented, reinvented, passed down from mentor to apprentice.
Look out for them wherever you can, they're worth their weight in gold.
Have I ever mentioned I used to forge steel? Maybe once or twice?