16# Maul

[bgott]

I bought this at an estate sale today for $3, I figured I would find a use for it at that price. I've seen hammers like this before but have no idea what, if any, special use they were designed for. Does anybody have an idea?

[DDA52]

OMG...that gave me flashbacks! Think driving stakes....lots of them. That is what we used them for. Hated the thing too. The guy who had it wouldn't machine the face. It was all cupped. Everytime you would hit something it would roll. Very hard on the wrists. When they are in good shape, they are great for stake driving. Nice big face to hit with too. Lots of work though.

[Franz]

Fence posts, the lovely woos fence posts with the tapered point on one end.
A real sumbeach will have you drivin those damn posts in dry hard clay with a mall. He will not be stupid enough to hold them for you though.

[Pile Buck]

NA, that’s not a hammer! A hammer is when you can’t screw those earplugs in tight enough. (See picture) I worked for a guy for years; all he would ever buy us is 20lb hammers. Whenever we would get through driving the pile, we would go into the false work mode. We would have to install friction collars on the concrete pile to support all the other frame work, which would support the concrete. These friction collars could be as big as 8” X 24” timbers, with as many as six 1-inch coil rod bolts to squeeze the concrete pile, and sometimes as many as 3 or 4 per pile depending on the amount of load. Well you can imagine how much these friction collars cost. We would shoot a grade mark on the piles and install the friction collars just above this mark, then take the 20lb hammer and tap it to grade, the theory behind the big hammer, was not to damage the friction collar

[bgott]

Thanks, I kind of figured it was for whackin' wood, considering the big faces. Pile Buck is right, you can't really consider a driving tool a hammer unless it's powered. That's why I spend a lot of time digging in the dark, dirty corners and out back in the weeds at estate sales looking for a Little Giant trip hammer that no one else has seen.

[stovepoker]

Bgott, that's a post maul. We used'em for driving fenceposts. We used railroad ties, and 7 or 8 hours of swinging one of those things will definitely put hair on your chest. Paint it up and hang it on the wall...you don't really want to use it.............

[stovepoker]

BTW, Bgott, what size Little Giant are you looking for? I'm looking for a flatbelt driven 25 pounder. From time to time I encounter larger hammers, I'll pass these on to you as I find'em. Does it have to be ready to run, or can you rebuild it if you must?

[bgott]

Driving railroad ties? That would definitely suck!!! I could rebuild an LG, I'm just looking for cheap, as in not having been found yet by another blacksmith and showing the resultant markup.

[rusted]

I could use that thing all the time. Landscaping and splitting wood alone I'd use it at least once a week. Not to mention the precision tweaks I have to make on various home equipment from time to time.

In the Navy a 'tweaker' was a smald adjustment screwdriver every ET used to carry in his shirt pocket. Adjust pots etc.

We also had big mauls for destroying crypto gear in case of boarding or sinking. We used to call them tweakers too. They were locked in their place never to be used except in that case, but of course how can you let a tool like that go unused while working on sensitive comm and radar gear?