
under the hammer
[Middle English hamer, from Old English hamor.]
hammerer ham'mer·er n.For more information on hammer, visit Britannica.com.
Background
A hammer is a handheld tool used to strike another object. It consists of a handle to which is attached a heavy head, usually made of metal, with one or more striking surfaces. There are dozens of different types of hammers. The most common is a claw hammer, which is used to drive and pull nails. Other common types include the ball-peen hammer and the sledge hammer.
The concept of using a heavy object to strike another object predates written history. The use of simple tools by our human ancestors dates to about 2,400,000 B.C. when various shaped stones were used to strike wood, bone, or other stones to break them apart and shape them. Stones attached to sticks with strips of leather or animal sinew were being used as axes or hammers by about 30,000 B.C. during the middle of the Old Stone Age.
The dawn of the Bronze Age brought a shift from stone to metal in the toolmaker's art. By about 3,000 B.C., axes with bronze or copper heads were being made in Mesopotamia, in what is now Iraq. The heads had a hole where a handle could be inserted and fastened. Nails made of copper or bronze were being used in the same area during the same period, suggesting that hammers with metal heads may have also existed. By about 200 B.C., Roman craftsmen used several types of iron-headed hammers for wood working and stone cutting. A Roman claw hammer dating from about 75 A.D. had a striking surface on one side of the head, and a split, curved claw for pulling nails on the other side. It's appearance is so much like a modern claw hammer that you might expect to find it in a hardware store, rather than a museum.
With the development of commerce and the specialization of trades, many different hammer designs evolved. Coachbuilders, wheelwrights, blacksmiths, Pricklayers, stone masons, cabinetmakers, barrel makers (coopers), shoe makers (cobblers), ship builders, and many other craftsmen designed and used their own unique hammers. In 1840, a blacksmith in the United States named David Maydole introduced a claw hammer with the head tapering downwards around the opening for the handle. This provided additional bearing surface for the handle and prevented it from being wrenched loose when the hammer was used to pull nails. His hammer became so popular that his blacksmith shop grew into a factory to keep up with the demand. Most claw hammers made today use this same design.
Modern hammers come in a variety of shapes, materials, and weights. Although some specialty hammers are no longer used, there is still a wide array of hammer configurations as new designs are developed for new applications.
Types of Hammers
In general, hammers have metal heads and are used to strike metal objects. The curved claw hammer used to drive nails into wood is one example. Other hammers include the framing hammer with a straight claw that can be driven between nailed boards to pry them apart. It is often used in heavy construction where temporary forms or supports must be removed. The ball peen hammer has a semi-spherical end and is used to shape metal. A tack hammer is one of the smallest hammers. It is used by upholsterers to drive small tacks into wood furniture frames. A sledge hammer is one of the largest hammers. It usually has a long handle and is used for driving spikes and other heavy work. Other modern hammers include brick hammers, riveting hammers, welder's hammers, hand drilling hammers, engineer's hammers, and many others.
A related class of hammer-like tools are called mallets. They have large heads made of rubber, plastic, wood, or leather. Mallets are used to strike objects that would be damaged by a blow from a metal hammer. Rubber mallets are used to assemble furniture or to beat dents out of metal. Wood and leather mallets are used to strike wood handled chisels. Plastic mallets have smaller heads and are used to drive small pins into machinery. A very large wooden mallet is sometimes called a maul.
Design
The two major components of a hammer are the head and the handle. The design of these two components depends on the specific application, but all hammers have many common features.
The striking surface of the head is called the face. It may be flat, called plain faced, or slightly convex, called bell faced. A bell-faced hammer is less likely to bend a nail if the nail is struck at an angle. Another face design is called a checkered face. It has crosshatched grooves cut into the surface to prevent the hammer from glancing off the nail head. Because it leaves a checkered impression on the wood, it is usually only found on framing hammers used for rough construction.
The surface of the head around the face is called the poll. The poll is connected to the main portion of the head by the slightly tapered neck. The hole where the handle fits into the head is called the adze (adz) eye. The side of the head next to the adze eye is called the cheek.
On the opposite end of the head, there may be a claw, a pick, a semi-spherical ball peen, or a tapered cross peen depending on the type of hammer. There may also be a second face, as in a double-faced sledge hammer.
Hammers are classified by the weight of the head and the length of the handle. The common curved claw hammer has a 7-20 oz (0.2-0.6 kg) head and a 12-13 in (30.5-33.0 cm) handle. A framing hammer, which normally drives much larger nails, has a 16-28 oz (0.5-0.8 kg) head and a 12-18 in (30.5-45.5 cm) handle.
Raw Materials
Hammer heads are made of high carbon, heat-treated steel for strength and durability. The heat treatment helps prevent chipping or cracking caused by repeated blows against other metal objects. Certain specialty hammers may have heads made of copper, brass, babbet metal, and other materials. Dead-blow hammers have a hollow head filled with small steel shot to give maximum impact with little or no rebound.
The handles may be made from wood, steel, or a composite material. Wood handles are usually made of straight-grained ash or hickory. These two woods have good cross-sectional strength, excellent durability, and a certain degree of resilience to absorb the shock of repeated blows. Steel handles are stronger and stiffer than wood, but they also transmit more shock to the user and are subject to rust. Composite handles may be made from fiberglass or graphite fiber-reinforced epoxy. These handles offer a blend of stiffness, light weight, and durability.
Steel and composite handles usually have a contoured grip made of a synthetic rubber or other elastomer. Wood handles do not have a separate grip. Steel and composite handles may also be encased in a high-impact polycarbonate resin. The addition of this material around the handle increases shock absorption, improves chemical resistance, and offers protection against accidental overstrikes. An overstrike is when the hammer head misses the nail and the handle takes the impact instead. This is a common cause of handle failure.
There are several materials and methods used to attach the head to the handle. Wood handle hammers use a single thin wood wedge driven diagonally into the upper end of the handle, with two steel wedges driven through the wood wedge at right angles to secure it in place.
The Manufacturing
Process
The manufacturing process varies from one company to another depending on the company's production capacity and proprietary methods. Some companies make their own handles, while others purchase the handles from outside suppliers.
Here is a typical sequence of operations for making a claw hammer.
Forming the head
Forming the handle
Assembling the hammer
Quality Control
In addition to the normal visual inspections and dimensional measurements, various steps in the manufacturing process are monitored. Probably the most important step is the heat treatment used to harden portions of the head. The temperatures and rate of heating and cooling are critical in forming the proper hardness, and the entire operation is closely controlled.
The Future
Having survived for thousands of years, it is unlikely that the hammer will disappear from civilization's toolbox anytime soon. It does have some serious competition though. The most formidable competitor is the gas-driven nail gun. This device uses a compressed gas, usually air, to drive a nail into wood with a single shot. Although nail guns are heavier and more expensive than hammers, they are also significantly faster. This is especially true in repetitive nailing operations such as installing floor or roof sheathing for new home construction. Nail guns are also favored in areas where noise is a concern. Because a nail gun can drive a nail in a single shot, it produces much less over-all noise than the five or six hammer blows it takes to drive a nail.
Where to Learn More
Books
Salaman, R.A. Dictionary of Tools. Charles Scribner's Sons, 1975.
Vila, Bob. This Old House Guide to Building and Remodeling Materials. Warner Books, Inc., 1986.
Periodicals
Capotosto, Rosario. "Hammer Basics." Popular Mechanics (October 1996): 104-107.
Neary, John. "When rules and drills drive you just plane screwy." Smithsonian (February 1991): 52-60, 62-65.
Other
Stanley Tools. http://www.stanleytools.com.
[Article by: Chris Cavette]
verb
A hand tool having a head at right angles to the handle; used for driving nails, pounding, flattening materials, etc.
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A price pattern in candlestick charting that occurs when a security trades significantly lower than its opening, but rallies later in the day to close either above or close to its opening price. This pattern forms a hammer-shaped candlestick.
Investopedia Says:
A hammer occurs after a security has been declining, possibly suggesting the market is attempting to determine a bottom.
The signal does not mean bullish investors have taken full control of a security, it simply indicates that the bulls are strengthening.
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Take a look at continuation patterns and how they can confirm or deny trends. Candlestick Charting: Perfecting The Art
If you want to use candlestick charting to get a sense of where a stock is headed, you need to learn how to read this unique charting language. The Basic Language Of Candlestick Charting
Read the case against this well-established indicator. Candle Sheds More Light Than The MACD
Precise and short, the tweezer setup is similar to double tops and bottoms. Tweezers Provide Short-Term Precision For Forex Traders
Refers to the last position to bet in a specific hand or the last person to bet in.
SoundPoker Says: One might say “You’ve got the hammer” when all previous players have checked to the last player.
See Also: Position
A hammer sometimes misses its mark — a bouquet never.
— Monta Crane
LearnThatWord.com is a free vocabulary and spelling program where you only pay for results!
Hammers suggest the power to forge new ways and build new dreams (e.g., as in the popular song "If I Had a Hammer"). A hammer can also indicate destructive force, as in hammering winds or hammering an opponent as well as an attempt to communicate a point, as in hammering away on some subject.
The malleus, the largest of the three bones of the middle ear.

A hammer is a tool meant to deliver an impact to an object. The most common uses are for driving nails, fitting parts, forging metal and breaking up objects. Hammers are often designed for a specific purpose, and vary widely in their shape and structure. The usual features are a handle and a head, with most of the weight in the head. The basic design is hand-operated, but there are also many mechanically operated models for heavier uses, such as steam hammers.
The hammer may be the oldest tool for which definite evidence exists. Stone hammers are known which are dated to 2,600,000 BCE.[1][2]
The hammer is a basic tool of many professions. By analogy, the name hammer has also been used for devices that are designed to deliver blows, e.g. in the caplock mechanism of firearms.
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Contents
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The use of simple tools dates to about 2,400,000 BCE when various shaped stones were used to strike wood, bone, or other stones to break them apart and shape them. Stones attached to sticks with strips of leather or animal sinew were being used as hammers by about 30,000 BCE during the middle of the Paleolithic Stone Age. Its archeological record means it is perhaps the oldest human tool known.
The essential part of a hammer is the head, a compact solid mass that is able to deliver the blow to the intended target without itself deforming.
The opposite side may have a ball, as in the ball-peen hammer and the cow hammer. Some upholstery hammers have a magnetized appendage, to pick up tacks. In the hatchet the hammer head is secondary to the cutting edge of the tool.
As the impact between steel hammer heads and the objects being hit can, and does, create sparks, which in some industries such as underground coal mining with methane gas, or in other hazardous environments containing flammable gases and vapours, can be dangerous and risk igniting the gases. In these environments, a variety of non-sparking metal tools are used, being principally, aluminium or beryllium copper-headed hammers.
In recent years the handles have been made of durable plastic or rubber. The hammer varies at the top; some are larger than others giving a larger surface area to hit different sized nails and such.
Popular hand-powered variations include:
Mechanically powered hammers often look quite different from the hand tools, but nevertheless most of them work on the same principle. They include:
In professional framing carpentry, the hammer has almost been completely replaced by the nail gun. In professional upholstery, its chief competitor is the staple gun.
A hammer is basically a force amplifier that works by converting mechanical work into kinetic energy and back.
In the swing that precedes each blow, a certain amount of kinetic energy gets stored in the hammer's head, equal to the length D of the swing times the force f produced by the muscles of the arm and by gravity. When the hammer strikes, the head gets stopped by an opposite force coming from the target; which is equal and opposite to the force applied by the head to the target. If the target is a hard and heavy object, or if it is resting on some sort of anvil, the head can travel only a very short distance d before stopping. Since the stopping force F times that distance must be equal to the head's kinetic energy, it follows that F will be much greater than the original driving force f — roughly, by a factor D/d. In this way, great strength is not needed to produce a force strong enough to bend steel, or crack the hardest stone.
The amount of energy delivered to the target by the hammer-blow is equivalent to one half the mass of the head times the square of the head's speed at the time of impact (
). While the energy delivered to the target increases linearly with mass, it increases geometrically with the speed (see the effect of the handle, below). High tech titanium heads are lighter and allow for longer handles, thus increasing velocity and delivering more energy with less arm fatigue than that of a steel head hammer of the same weight. As hammers must be used in many circumstances, where the position of the person using them cannot be taken for granted, trade-offs are made for the sake of practicality. In areas where one has plenty of room, a long handle with a heavy head (like a sledge hammer) can deliver the maximum amount of energy to the target. It is not practical to use such a large hammer for all tasks, however, and thus the overall design has been modified repeatedly to achieve the optimum utility in a wide variety of situations.
The handle of the hammer helps in several ways. It keeps the user's hands away from the point of impact. It provides a broad area that is better-suited for gripping by the hand. Most importantly, it allows the user to maximize the speed of the head on each blow. The primary constraint on additional handle length is the lack of space in which to swing the hammer. This is why sledge hammers, largely used in open spaces, can have handles that are much longer than a standard carpenter's hammer. The second most important constraint is more subtle. Even without considering the effects of fatigue, the longer the handle, the harder it is to guide the head of the hammer to its target at full speed. Most designs are a compromise between practicality and energy efficiency. Too long a handle: the hammer is inefficient because it delivers force to the wrong place, off-target. Too short a handle: the hammer is inefficient because it doesn't deliver enough force, requiring more blows to complete a given task. Recently, modifications have also been made with respect to the effect of the hammer on the user. A titanium head has about 3% recoil and can result in greater efficiency and less fatigue when compared to a steel head with about 27% recoil. Handles made of shock-absorbing materials or varying angles attempt to make it easier for the user to continue to wield this age-old device, even as nail guns and other powered drivers encroach on its traditional field of use.
Gravity will exert a force on the hammer head. If hammering downwards gravity will increase the acceleration during the hammer stroke and increase the energy delivered with each blow. If hammering upwards gravity will reduce the acceleration during the hammer stroke and therefore reduce the energy delivered with each blow. Some hammering methods rely entirely on gravity for acceleration on the down stroke.
A war hammer is a late medieval weapon of war intended for close combat action.
The hammer, being one of the most used tools by 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 was the symbol of the former Soviet Union and is very interlinked with Communism/Socialism. The hammer in this symbol represents the industrial working class (and the sickle the agricultural working class). The hammer is used in some coat of arms in (former) socialist countries like East Germany.
In Norse Mythology, Thor, the god of thunder and lightning, wields a hammer named Mjolnir. Many artifacts of decorative hammers have been found, leading modern practitioners of this religion to often wear reproductions as a sign of their faith.
Wooden mallet
Straight pane sledgehammer
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Dansk (Danish)
n. - hammer, geværhane
v. tr. - slå, dunke, banke
v. intr. - dundre, knokle
idioms:
Nederlands (Dutch)
hamer, trekker/-haan, slingerkogel, klavierhamer, middenoors beentje, hameren, zwoegen, verslaan, beuken, (doen) kelderen, insolvent verklaren, kogelslingeren onder de hamer brengen, veilen
Français (French)
n. - (Anat) marteau (de l'oreille), chien (arme à feu), (Sport) marteau (au lancer), (Tech) marteau, (Mus) marteau (d'un piano)
v. tr. - (fig) faire entrer qch dans la tête de, critiquer, descendre (qch) en flammes, (Sport) battre (qn) à plates coutures
v. intr. - frapper à coups de marteaux, tambouriner contre, battre fort (le c¯ur)
idioms:
Deutsch (German)
n. - Hammer, Hahn
v. - hämmern, (vernichtend) schlagen, (econ.) für zahlungsunfähig erklären
idioms:
Ελληνική (Greek)
n. - σφυρί, επικρουστήρας, λύκος (όπλου), (ανατ., αθλητ.) σφύρα
v. - σφυρηλατώ, σφυροκοπώ, κτυπώ δυνατά
idioms:
Italiano (Italian)
martellare, battere, martello
idioms:
Português (Portuguese)
n. - martelo (m), cão (m) de espingarda
v. - martelar, malhar
idioms:
Русский (Russian)
молоток, бить молотом, колотить, работать над составлением, втолковывать, упорно работать, раскритиковать, налететь на кого-л., стучать
idioms:
Español (Spanish)
n. - martillo
v. tr. - martillar, batir, forjar, fraguar
v. intr. - reiterar, repetir para enfatizar algo
idioms:
Svenska (Swedish)
n. - hammare (äv. i piano o anat.), slägga (sport), (auktions)klubba, hane (på gevär), snygg, sexig tjej, gaspedal
v. - hamra, besegra, bulta, utarbeta (bildl.), försätta i konkurs, pressa ner (ekon.), dricka sig full
中文(简体)(Chinese (Simplified))
锤, 钉锤, 铁锤, 锤打, 钉, 敲打, 锤击, 反复强调
idioms:
中文(繁體)(Chinese (Traditional))
n. - 錘, 釘錘, 鐵錘
v. tr. - 錘打, 釘, 敲打
v. intr. - 錘擊, 敲打, 錘打, 反復強調
idioms:
한국어 (Korean)
n. - 망치, 해머 모양의 연장, (육상 경기) 해머
v. tr. - 망치로 두드리다 , ~에 못질하다, ~을 두드려 펴다, ~을 역설하다
v. intr. - 망치로 치다, 꾸준히 일하다, 강조하다
idioms:
日本語 (Japanese)
n. - 金づち, ハンマー, 金づちに似た物, 撃鉄, つち, 槌骨, げんのう
v. - 金づちで打つ, ドンドンたたく, たたき込む, やっ付ける, 叩きのめす, 叩き込む
idioms:
العربيه (Arabic)
(الاسم) مطرقه, شئ يشبه المطرقه شكلا أو عملا زند البندقيه مثلا (فعل) يطرق, يدق, يقوم بمحاولات متكررة, يكرر رأيا أو مسلكا يبيع بالمزاد العلني
עברית (Hebrew)
n. - פטיש, עצם הפטיש באוזן, נוקר (ברובה)
v. tr. - הביס, הכה (בפטיש), תקע (מסמר) בפטיש
v. intr. - הכה (בפטיש)
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