Hammer throw

“ HAMMER-THROWING, a branch of field athletics which consists of hurling to the greatest possible distance an instrument with a heavy head and slender handle called the hammer. Throwing the hammer is in all probability of Keltic origin, as it has been popular in Ireland and Scotland for many centuries. ”

“ In England the Amateur Athletic Association in 1908 enacted that “the head and handle may be of any size, shape and material, provided that the complete implement shall not be more than 4 ft. and its weight not less than 16 ℔. The competitor may assume any position he chooses, and use either one or both hands. All throws shall be made from a circle 7 ft. in diameter.” The modern hammer-thrower, if right-handed, begins by placing the head on the ground at his right side. ”

“ In 1875 the throw was made from a 7-ft. circle without run, head and handle of the missile weighing together exactly 16 ℔. In 1887 the circle was enlarged to 9 ft., and in 1896 a handle of flexible metal was legalized. The throw was made after a few rapid revolutions of the body, which added an impetus that greatly added to the distance attained. It thus happened that the Scottish competitors at the English games, who clung to their standing style of throwing, were, although athletes of the very first class, repeatedly beaten ”

“ If there is any corrosive substance upon it or upon the sides of the hollow in which it is to travel, the hammer will fail to drive it home or explode the cap. The hammer must strike it in exact position, or the pin will bend; any extra length or protrusion of the pin, or any dampness or foulness which causes it to stick, or if the pin be nipped in any way so as to weaken the force of the hammer, a miss-fire will probably be the result; and the pins must not be too loose, or they will drop out of the cartridges on any sudden or violent exertion on the part of the sportsman. ”

“ As children we watched the blacksmith at his anvil, attracted and yet half-terrified by the spark-showers flying from a white-hot horseshoe. And even the adult, long used to startling sights, might well be fascinated and dismayed by the terrific blows dealt on glowing ingots by the mechanical sledge.
A steam hammer at work in Woolwich Arsenal, forging a steel ingot for the inner tube of a big gun. It delivers a blow equivalent to the momentum of a falling mass weighing 4000 tons. ”

“ It was Phil Branch, square-built and square of jaw, who was talking.
"There's only one thing I can handle better than a gun, and that's a sledge-hammer. A gun is all right in its way, but for work in a crowd, well, give me a hammer and I'll show you a way out." ”

“ That point reached, the striker leaves the bellows, and the maker brings one of the pieces to the anvil; and while the latter turns it over and over, and deals it skilful little blows with a small hammer, the former, armed again with his great “sledge,” comes down upon it with heavy blows, that smash out sparks in all directions. ”

“ There is hardly any talking in the room; the work is urgent, the hour late, so the men hurry on in silence. Here a group of grimy blacksmiths are dragging a huge white-hot iron bar to be hammered; there a row of them bend and raise themselves as under a command over their vices. Opposite them the turners bend to watch the revolving work in the machines. Sparks fly from under the hammer. From time to time an order or a curse is heard. Sometimes the hammering and filing slackens down, and then the mournful groan of the bellows blowing on to the furnaces begins. ”

“ The manner in which his strokes follow one another puts me in mind of the clever way in which workmen drive an iron bar into a macadamised road by raining upon it blows with sledge-hammers. Almost before the hammer of the first striker is off the head of the bar the second has struck it, this is immediately followed by the hammer of the third, then, without a pause, the first hammerer gets his second blow home, and so they continue until a halt is called. ”

“ In such cases, the workmen acquire great skill and expedition in the manufacture. A tilt hammer is often used in forging large masses of iron, and even in making utensils as small as the hoe, the axe, and the sword; but the hammer which may be employed bears a due proportion in its weight to the mass of iron to be wrought. In all cases in which a tilt hammer is used, the bellows from which the blast proceeds is moved by water or steam power. ”

“ When the hammer is drawn back it should come with less and less resistance as it rises, and vise versa when the hammer is let down, exerting its greatest power immediately on reaching the nipple or firing-pin. ”

“ A few moments' rapid thought satisfied him that it was by rigidly adhering to the old traditional form of hand-hammer—of which the tilt, though driven by steam, was but a modification—that the difficulty had arisen. When even the largest hammer was tilted up to its full height, its range was so small, that when a piece of work of considerable size was placed on the anvil, the hammer became "gagged," and, on such an occasion, where the forging required the most powerful blow, it received next to no blow at all,—the clear space for fall being almost entirely occupied by the work on the anvil. ”

“ Spear and arrow-heads could be flaked with the most delicate precision, with no such liability to fracture as leads to constant failure in any attempt to chip even the larger and ruder spear or axe-heads into shape. The hammer-stone only suffices for the earlier processes, including the detachment of the flake from the rough flint nodule, and trimming it roughly into the required form, preparatory to the delicate manipulation of edging, pointing, and notching the arrow-head. ”

“ Their arms were the bow and arrow, a short spear or lance, with a head of sharpened stone or bone, stone hammers with wooden handles, and knives made of bone or stone, and if of stone, lashed by rawhide or sinew to a split wooden handle.
The hammers were of two sorts: one quite heavy, almost like a sledge-hammer or maul, and with a short handle; the other much lighter, and with a longer, more limber handle. This last was used by men in war as a mace or war club, while the heavier hammer was used by women as an axe to break up fallen trees for firewood ”

“ The hammer moved on a transverse pin, and was pressed down on the nipple by a back spring in the stock, being connected with it by a swivel link; the trigger was kept in position by a horizontal bent spring, and had attached to it the hammer-lifter and the ratchet pall; the point of the former fell into a notch in the base of the hammer, so that as the trigger was pulled, the hammer was raised, until the rounded portion of the base, acting as a cam, forced the lifter out of the notch, and allowed the hammer to descend on the nipple and to explode the percussion-cap. ”

“ His hammer is a tool of immense power and pliancy, but for which we must have stopped short in many of those gigantic engineering works which are among the marvels of the age we live in. It possesses so much precision and delicacy that it will chip the end of an egg resting in a glass on the anvil without breaking it, while it delivers a blow of ten tons with such a force as to be felt shaking the parish. ”

“ It is curious to see how the rudest of primitive weapons, after its serious warlike use has ceased, survives as a symbol of power, when the mace is carried as emblem of the royal authority, and is laid on the table during the sitting of Parliament or the Royal Society. While the club has been generally a weapon, the hammer has been generally an implement. Its history begins with the smooth heavy pebble held in the hand, such as African blacksmiths to this day forge their iron with, on another smooth stone as anvil. It was a great improvement to fasten the stone hammer on a handle ”

“ There are some instances, indeed, in which the perforation would appear to be almost too small for a shaft of sufficient strength to wield the hammer, if such it were; but even in such cases, where hard silicious pebbles have been used, they must, in all probability, have been intended for other purposes than for weights. ”

“ A nod of the head or a few motions of the hand will be sufficient; his mates understand him perfectly and everything proceeds without a hitch. The hammer-driver, encouraged to use his discretion, knows exactly what kind of a blow to strike — heavy or light, light or heavy — when to stop and when to begin. The grimy mate, usually styled the donkeyman, stands by with the gauges; at each pause he fits them to the white-hot mass of iron or steel and again the hammer descends, regularly and evenly. ”

“ Throwing the Hammer with a Run.—The hammer-head shall be a solid iron sphere, weighing 16 lbs., the handle shall be of hickory wood, and the length of hammer and handle over all shall be 3 ft. 6 in. Unlimited run is allowed, and the competitor may deliver the hammer as he pleases. Letting go of the hammer in an attempt counts as "a try." Each competitor allowed three trials, and the best three men have three more trials each. Each competitor shall be credited with the best of all his throws. If the head strikes first, the measurement shall be from the nearest break of the ground made by it. ”

“ The hammer is swung clear from the hip and travels eighteen feet or more before it comes in contact with the inch-square upper end of the jumper. The whole course of the blow is calculated instinctively before the hammer rises to the swing. This work is classed as unskilled labour.
When it is considered that men often work the whole ten-hour shift with the eternal hammer in their hands it is really a wonder that more accidents do not take place, especially since the labour is often performed after a night's heavy drinking or gambling. A holder is seldom wounded; when he is struck he dies. ”

“ The holes, from each side, do not meet in the middle.
The specimen shown in Fig. 145 was found in the Thames, at London, and is now in the British Museum. In form it is curiously like a metallic hammer, swelling out around the shaft-hole, and tapering down to a round flat face at each extremity. So far as I know, it is unique of its kind in this country. It is more probably the head of a war mace than that of an ordinary hammer. A somewhat similar hammer, of porphyry, is in the museum of the Deutsche Gesellschaft at Leipzig. ”

“ Yes, those watchful, kind eyes followed his slightest movements; and while the hammer was going in vigorous blows on the planks, or the axe chipping away a timber, his pleasant voice sang Creole songs to the child, or encouraged his innocent prattle. A loaded musket, which, with some ammunition, he had dug out from the wreck of his old quarters, stood leaning against an upright post under the shade, and woe to the man or beast that might have dared to approach the boy! ”

“ In assembling or disassembling parts of the materiel, no part will be struck directly with a hammer. If force is necessary, a piece of wood or copper should be interposed between the hammer and the part struck. ”

“ A gentle pressure upon the treadle will allow the hammer to go down slowly, but it will stop and remain suspended at any point as soon as the pressure is removed. The hammer can also be arrested at any point on its way up, by bringing into action the hand lever, so that the next blow can be given from a state of rest at a less height than the collar is set for. ”

“ Towards the end of the heathen period we find instead of the axe a symbolical hammer, alike on both sides of the eye. The fact that in Scandinavia the sun god's axe became a hammer can be explained, if we consider the original Scandinavian word hamarr. This word signified originally stone, and was thus a natural term for the weapon of the sun god or the thunder god, so long as this weapon was thought of as a thunderbolt of stone. Later on, when the word had acquired its present meaning of hammer, it was just as natural for people to imagine Thor's weapon to be an iron hammer. ”

“ If there is no such mark, take one of the suspected objects in the tongs, put it on an anvil, and with a light hammer knock it about a little to see if it breaks up; as a further test put it in the forge fire, heat it to a bright red heat, cut and open out the object to its full length, and then proceed, with your hammer, to draw out the end, as if you were going to make a long sharp nail from it. If the suspected metal is wrought iron it readily takes the spike form, but if malleable it will give under the hammer and break up. ”

“ The head of the hammer, which of course works vertically, is detachable, so that if the monster breaks his steel fist upon coil or anvil, another can be quickly supplied. These huge heads alone are as big as a sugar-hogshead, and come down upon the hot iron with an energy of more than a thousand foot-tons. ”

“ The hammer is thus made to act as its own lever, for as the toe portion rises when the barrel is opened, the striker falls back until it is caught in the notch of the sear.
To guard against the possibility of accidental discharge of the hammerless gun, in which type of gun the hammer must be always at full cock, a safety trigger bolt is utilized. This bolt is affixed in the frame in a vertical position by pivoting it, and to the upper part of the lever is attached a slide placed on top of the tang immediately back of the top lever which opens the barrels. ”

“ The clenched fist must have suggested the need of a hammer. The first thing to be substituted for the fist was a stone held in the hand. Next a thong of fiber or leather was wound around the stone, and used as a handle. From these beginnings we have progressed until we have hammers of all sizes and shapes, from the tiny hammer of the jeweler to the ponderous sledge. Workmen have adapted various shapes of hammers to their individual needs.
Fig. 6.—Hand Hammers.
A, ball peen hammer; B, cross peen hammer; C, straight peen hammer. ”