Hammers

thumb|right|upright=1.3|A modern claw hammer suited to drive and remove nails thumb|Cartwheel mallets with heads of felt held between steel washers for use with [[timpani drums]] thumb|Detail of the head of a war hammer thumb|right|A geologist's hammer used to break up rocks, as seen in [[archaeology and prospecting]]

thumb|A silver-gilded Thor|Thor's hammer found in [[Scania, Sweden, that once belonged to the collection of Baron Claes Kurck.]]

A sledgehammer is a tool with a large, flat, massive, often metal head, attached to a long wooden or solid handle. The long handle is combined with a heavy head which allows the sledgehammer to pick up momentum during a swing and apply a large force compared to hammers designed to drive nails. Along with the mallet, it shares the ability to distribute force over a wide area. This is in contrast to other types of hammers, which concentrate gravity and force in a relatively small area.

thumb|Rubber mallets thumb|A wooden mallet thumb|Rawhide mallet thumb|Stonemason's mallets of plastic, wood and steel thumb|An iron mallet with copper faces. Solid head copper mallets are produced with a round or square head thumb|An aluminium [[meat mallet, for tenderizing meat]] thumb|Meat mallet. thumb|Cooking mallet for crushing crops. thumb|Indian cobbler tool kit, with an iron mallet A mallet is a tool used for imparting force on another object, often made of rubber or sometimes wood, that is smaller than a maul or beetle, and usually has a relatively large head.

late medieval weapon

power hammer

hammer used for splitting and breaking rocks

powered hammer

masonry tool used to texturize stone and concrete

A gavel is a small ceremonial mallet/hammer commonly made of hardwood, typically fashioned with a handle. It can be used to call for attention or to punctuate rulings and proclamations and is a symbol of the authority and right to act officially in the capacity of a presiding officer. It is often struck against a sound block, a striking surface typically also made of hardwood, to enhance its sounding qualities. It is primarily used in live auctions.

heavy, long-handled axe used for splitting a piece of wood along its grain

safety device used to break through window glass in an emergency

common carpentry tool

mechanical forging hammers

type of hammer used in metalworking

medical instrument used to test tendon reflexes

hammer made of iron and wood that was found in London, Texas, U.S.

thumb|Scythian archer holding a sagaris, as depicted by the vase-painter Euphronios on an Attic red-figure [[neck amphora (510–500 BC, Louvre)]]

hammer with opposed flat and chisel blade striking faces

mallet helpful in minimizing damage to the struck surface and in controlling striking force, with minimal rebound from the struck surface

thumb|In this Kunisada print, [[Horibe Yasubei holds a large mallet.]] An is a large wooden war mallet used by the samurai class of feudal Japan. Unlike bladed weapons such as the katana or polearms such as the naginata, the ōtsuchi was a blunt-force instrument, resembling an oversized wooden mallet or sledgehammer. It had a shaft of about 6 ft (183 cm) much like the ono (war axe). Typically constructed of heavy wood, sometimes reinforced with iron, the ōtsuchi was not commonly used for direct combat but for breaching doors, gates, or fortifications. Its design and purpose align it with siege

300px|thumb|right|The head of an obuch (with a rolled up beak) The obuch, obuszek or obuszysko is a type of melee weapon, very similar to a horseman's pick () but differing from it with a curved beak opposite the hammer. In Poland, it was customary to distinguish this type of weapon by the type of tip: if it has a sharp, perpendicular beak, it is a horseman's pick; if the beak is curled downward, it is an obuch; if it has an axe head, it is a . Most often there was a hammer on the opposite side of the blade.

hand tool