HAND TOOLS

Hand tool
A hand tool is a device for doing a particular job that does not use a motor, but is
powered solely by the person using it.

Examples are almost endless, from general tools like the hammer to specific tools like
callipers. Some hand tools are mounted to walls, such as pencil sharpeners.

Virtually every type of tool can be a hand tool, although many have also been adapted as
power tools, which get their motive power from engines rather than from people. Some
hand tools cannot be easily or safely converted to power tools, for example chisels. Other
examples are used by laborers such as hammer and saw.

Hammer
.

A modern claw hammer

A hammer is a tool meant to deliver blows to an object. The most common uses are for
driving nails, fitting parts, and breaking up objects. Hammers are often designed for a
specific purpose, and vary widely in their shape and structure. 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.

The hammer is a basic tool of many professions, and can also be used as a weapon. It is
perhaps the oldest human tool

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.

•
History
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 and 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.

Designs and variations

The essential part of a hammer is the head, a compact solid mass that is able to deliver
the blows to the intended target without itself deforming.

The opposite side of 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.

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:

• carpenter's hammers (used for nailing), such as the framing hammer and the claw
hammer
• upholstery hammer
• construction hammers, including the sledgehammer
• drilling hammer - a lightweight, short handled sledgehammer
• ball-peen hammer, or mechanic's hammer
• cross-peen hammer, or Warrington hammer
• Mallets, including the rubber hammer and dead blow hammer.
• Splitting maul
• stonemason's hammer
• Geologist's hammer or rock pick
• lump hammer, or club hammer
• gavel, used by judges and presiding authorities in general
• Tinner's Hammer

Claw hammer Framing hammer Upholstery hammer

 Ball-peen hammer Rubber mallet Wooden mallet
Cross-peen hammer

Sledgehammer

Mechanically-powered hammers often look quite different from the hand tools, but
nevertheless most of them work on the same principle. They include:

• jackhammer
• steam hammer
• trip hammer
• hammer drill, that combines a jackhammer-like mechanism with a drill