Hammer: Encyclopedia - Hammer

Hammer

A hammer is a tool meant to deliver blows to a target, causing it to move or deform. The most common uses are for driving nails, fitting parts, and breaking up objects. Hammers are often designed for a specific purpose, and so their design varies quite a lot. Usual features are a handle and a head, with the balance firmly in the head. The head is composed of a flat striking surface on one end, and a peen on the other. The peen can be shaped like a claw or wedge to pull nails, or like a ball as in the ball-peen hammer.

The hammer is used in many professions, and is one of the most basic tools along with the knife.

Like the knife (and almost all tools), the hammer can also be used as a weapon. The concept of putting a handle on a weight to make it more convenient to use may well have led to the very first tools and/or weapons ever invented. In the Middle Ages, the war hammer was developed when edged weapons could no longer easily penetrate some forms of armour.

The hammer takes its place in modern weapons in the form of the firearm hammer or firing-pin hammer, a component of a firearm which strikes the percussion-sensitive part of a cartridge causing the firearm to discharge.

The use of a hammer to fix broken machinery is jokingly referred to as percussive maintenance.

Well-known forms include:

• Carpenter's hammer (used for nailing), including:
  • framing hammer
  • claw hammer
• Upholstery hammer
• Construction hammer, including sledgehammer
• Ball-peen hammer or Mechanic's hammer,
• Cross-peen hammer or Warrington hammer
• Mallet, including rubber hammer and dead blow hammer.
• Maul
• Sledgehammer
• Steam hammer
• Stonemason's hammer
• Lump hammer or club hammer
• Firearm hammer
• Gavel used by judges and presiding authorities in general

Claw hammer

Framing hammer

Upholstery hammer

Ball-peen hammer

Rubber mallet

Wooden mallet

Sledgehammer

In professional framing carpentry, the hammer has almost been completely replaced by the nail gun.

Hammer blows feature in Mahler's sixth symphony, representing blows of fate. A hammer is also used in the third of Alban Berg's Three Pieces for Orchestra, in tribute to Mahler.

A common adage states that "When all you've got is a hammer, everything looks like a nail."

Hammers are among the most widely used tools.

Hammer - Hammers used in Symbolism

The hammer, being one of the most used tools to the Homo Sapiens, has been used very much in symbols and arms. In the middle ages it was used often in blacksmith guild logos, as well as in many family symbols. The most recognised symbol with a hammer in it is the Hammer and Sickle, which is the symbol of socialism or communism. The hammer in this symbol symbolises the working class, for obvious reasons. The hammer is used in some coat of arms in (former) socialist (or pseudo socialist) countries like East Germany

See also

• Club (weapon)

WikiProject Metalworking: This article is part of Metalworking hand tools.

Categories: Hammers | Metalworking hand tools

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Hammer", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki