1. A tool for driving nails, beating metals, and the like.
We can hardly admit the statement of Pliny that the hammer was invented by Cinyra, the discoverer of copper-mines in the island of
Cyprus.
Tools of metal, of which the hammer was among the first, must have been in use for many centuries.
Tubal Cain, the descendant in the sixth generation from
Cain, was an “artificer in brass and iron” ; copper, probably, rather than brass.
Brass and bronze are
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1052]
not distinguished from each other, by name, either in
Greek or Latin.
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Hammer-wrench. |
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Hack-hammer. |
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Piano-movement hammer. |
The initial form was perhaps a stone fastened to a handle, and used as a club,
A B C D E. Many such are found in the relics of the stone age, before man had learned the use of metal, the most useful of which, iron, was about the last to be discovered, of those which are applied to the common affairs of life.
This stone age is so far in the remote past as to antedate all historical accounts of manners, customs, and appliances.
The use of stone, however, in the mode described, still exists among many nations imperfectly provided with a better substitute.
In the
Bible we read of hammers for nails, forging, and planishing, and for breaking stone.
A B are ancient stone hammers, found in longneglected workings of the
Lake Superior copper region, and are identical with those of other parts of the world.
It is not necessary to give them an equal antiquity to the “celts,” stone axes and hammers of the stone age of
Europe, as many of the implements yet in use among the more barbarous
North American Indians are of the same general character.
See axe.
Modern hammers are of many shapes and kinds.
The parts are the
handle and
head. The latter has an
eye, face, peen, or
claw.
F shows a riveting hammer.
Of its parts
a is the face,
b the poll,
c the eye,
d the peen,
c the helve.
G is a large hammer used by machinists.
Between
F and
G is a
claw, which takes the place of the
peen of the other hammer.
I and
J are miners' hammers;
K a miner's wedge.
Hammer-making forms a very important part of the industry of the great manufacturing center,
Birmingham, and its satellite,
Wolverhampton.
The nomenclature of the various kinds, which are numerous, is generally derived from their application, though in some instances from the form.
File-maker's, sledge, riveting, lift, raising, claw, planishing, gold-beater's, hacking, veneering, may be enumerated among the numerous varieties, as well as
tilt and
steam hammers.
Hammers employed in engine work are of three sizes, the
sledge, flogging, and
hand hammers.
See also miner's hammer.
Fig. 2365 is a combined hammer and wrench.
Fig. 2366 is a tack-hammer with claw handle and a sharp peen which forms a screw-driver.
The Japanese hammers are solid cylindrical pieces, not made shapely with waists and graceful outlines like ours.
They have the same flat-sided handles as the saws.
2. The
striker of a clock.
3. (
Fire-arms.) Formerly, the hammer of the flint-lock was the steel cover of the priming-pan, and the parts connected therewith which received the blow of the flint which was held in the
cock. With the old flint-lock, the parts of the
hammer were the
body, face, back, seat, the
heel or
tail, and the
toe. The hammer of the percussion-lock is the striking part itself, — the
cock. Such changes are not uncommon in mechanics.
The piano-jack is another instance.
See gun-lock.
4. (
Music.) A small padded mallet by which the string of a piano is struck.
See also under the following heads : —
| About-sledge. | Holding — up hammer. |
| Atmospheric-hammer. | Knapping-hammer. |
| Ball-peen hammer. | Lathing-hammer. |
| Barking-mallet. | Lift-hammer. |
| Bat. | Machinist's hammer. |
| Beetle. | Mallet. |
| Bench-hammer. | Marcus. |
| Bolt-hammer. | Marteline-hammer. |
| Bott-hammer. | Maul. |
| Bricklayer's hammer. | Meat-hammer. |
| Bucking-iron. | Mill-pick. |
| Bush-hammer. | Millstone-hammer. |
| Celt. | Miner's hammer. |
| Chasing-hammer. | Monkey. |
| Chop-hammer. | Nail-hammer. |
| Claw-hammer. | Oliver. |
| Clock-movement hammer. | Peen. |
| Closing-hammer. | Percussor. |
| Commencing-hammer. | Piano-movement hammer |
| Cooper's hammer. | Pick-hammer. |
| Creasing-hammer. | Pig-iron breaker. |
| Dead-stroke hammer. | Planishing-hammer. |
| Dental-hammer. | Pneumatic-hammer. |
| Drop-hammer. | Polishing-hammer. |
| Enlarging-hammer. | Power-hammer. |
| Fid-hammer. | Ragging-hammer. |
| Finishing-hammer. | Raising-hammer. |
| Flat-hammer. | Ram. |
| Flatter-hammer. | Rammer. |
| Flogging-hammer. | Ramrod. |
| Flue-hammer. | Revolving-hammer. |
| Foot-hammer. | Riveting-hammer. |
| Fore-hammer. | Scabbling-hammer. |
| Forge-hammer. | Set-hammer. |
| Forging-apparatus. | Set — up hammer. |
| Friction-hammer. | Shingling-hammer. |
| Furrowing-hammer. | Shoe-hammer. |
| Gavel. | Sledge-hammer. |
| Gold-beater's hammer. | Spalling-hammer. |
| Gun-lock hammer. | Spreading-hammer. |
| Gunpowder-hammer. | Stamp-head. |
| Hack. | Steam-hammer. |
| Hammer-axe. | Stone-breaker's hammer. |
| Hand-hammer. | Stone-hammer. |
| Hatchet. | Striker. |
| Helve. | Swaging-machine. |
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1053]
| Tack-hammer. | Veneering-hammer. |
| Tilt-hammer. | Wrench-hammer. |
| Trip-hammer. |
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Hammer-beam roof. |
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Hammock. |
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Artificial hands. |
