A
trip hammer, also known as a
helve
hammer, is a massive powered
hammer
used in:
Trip hammers were usually raised by a
cam and
then released to fall under the force of
gravity.
Historically, trip hammers were often powered
by a water wheel, and are known to be
used in China
as long ago
as 20 AD, in Rome by the first century
AD and in medieval Europe by the 12th
century. During the
Industrial Revolution the trip hammer
fell out of favor and was replaced with the
power hammer. Often multiple hammers were
powered via a set of
line shafts, pulleys
and belts from a centrally located power supply.
Early history
China
In ancient China, the trip hammer evolved out of the use of the
pestle and mortar, which in turn
gave rise to the treadle-operated tilt-hammer (
Pinyin: dui;
Wade-Giles:
tui). The latter was a simple device employing a lever and fulcrum
(operated by pressure applied by the weight of one's foot to one
end), which featured a series of catches or lugs on the main
revolving shaft as well. This device enabled the labor of pounding,
often in the decorticating and polishing of grain, and avoided
manual use of pounding with hand and arm. Although historians
assert that its origins may span as far back as the
Zhou Dynasty (1050 BC–221 BC), the earliest
texts to describe the device are the
Ji Jiu Pian 急就篇
dictionary of 40 BC,
Yang
Xiong's text known as the
Fangyan of 15 BC, as well as the
Xin
Lun written by
Huan Tan about 20 AD
(during the usurpation of
Wang Mang). The
latter book states that the legendary mythological king known as
Fu Xi was the one responsible for the pestle
and mortar (which evolved into the tilt-hammer and then trip hammer
device). Although the author speaks of the mythological Fu Xi, a
passage of his writing gives hint that the waterwheel and
trip-hammer were in widespread use by the 1st century AD in China
(for Chinese
metallurgy with water-power,
see
Du Shi) (Wade-Giles spelling):
Fu Hsi invented the pestle and mortar, which is so
useful, and later on it was cleverly improved in such a way that
the whole weight of the body could be used for treading on the
tilt-hammer (tui), thus increasing the efficiency ten times.
Afterwards the power of animals—donkeys, mules, oxen, and
horses—was applied by means of machinery, and water-power too used
for pounding, so that the benefit was increased a
hundredfold.
With his description, it is seen that the out-of-date Chinese term
for pestle and mortar (dui, tui) would soon be replaced with the
Chinese term for the water-powered trip-hammer (Pinyin: shui dui;
Wade-Giles: shui tui). The Han Dynasty scholar and poet
Ma Rong (79–166 AD) mentioned in one of his poems of
hammers 'pounding in the water-echoing caves'.
As described in the
Hou Han Shu, in 129 AD the
official Yu Xu gave a report to Emperor Shun of Han that trip hammers
were being exported from Han China to the Western Qiang people by way of canals through the
Qilian
Mountains
. In
his
Rou Xing Lun, the government official
Kong Rong (153–208 AD) remarked that the invention
of the trip hammer was an excellent example of a product created by
intelligent men during his own age (comparing the relative
achievements of the sages of old). During the 3rd century AD, the
high government official and engineer
Du Yu
established the use of combined trip hammer batteries (lian zhi
dui), which employed several shafts that were arranged to work off
one large waterwheel. In Chinese texts of the 4th century, there
are written accounts of men possessing and operating hundreds of
trip hammer machines, such as the venerable mathematician Wang Rong
(died 306 AD), Deng Yu (died 326 AD), and Shi Chong (died 300 AD),
responsible for the operation of hundreds of trip hammers in over
thirty governmental districts throughout China.
There are numerous
references to trip hammers during the Tang
Dynasty (618–907 AD) and Song
Dynasty (960–1279), and there are Ming Dynasty
(1368–1644) references that report the use of trip
hammers in papermills of Fujian
Province.
Although Chinese trip hammers in China were sometimes powered by
the more efficient vertical-set waterwheel, the Chinese often
employed the horizontal-set waterwheel in operating trip hammers,
along with recumbent hammers. The recumbent hammer was found in
Chinese illustrations by 1313 AD, with the publishing of
Wang Zhen's
Nong Shu book on
ancient and contemporary (medieval) metallurgy in China. There were
also illustrations of trip hammers in an
encyclopedia of 1637, written by
Song Yingxing (1587–1666).
Greco-Roman world
The main components for water-powered trip hammers -
water wheels,
cams, and
hammers - were already known in
Hellenistic times.
Ancient cams are in evidence in early
water-powered
automata from the third
century BC.
A passage in the Natural History of the Roman scholar Pliny (NH 18.97) indicates that water-driven
pestles had become fairly widespread in Italy
by the first
century AD: "The greater part of Italy uses an unshod pestle and
also wheels which water turns as it flows past, and a trip-hammer
[mola]". These trip-hammers were used for the pounding and
hulling of
grain. Grain-pounders with pestles,
as well as ordinary
watermills, are also
attested as late as the middle of the fifth century in a
monastery founded by
Romanus of Condat in the remote
Jura region, indicating that the knowledge of trip
hammers continued into the early
Middle
Ages. Apart from agricultural processing, archaeological
evidence also strongly suggests the existence of trip hammers in
Roman metal working.
In Ickham
in Kent
, a large
metal hammer-head with mechanical deformations was excavated in an
area where several Roman water-mills and metal waste dumps have
also been traced.
The widest application of trip hammers, however, seems to have
occurred in Roman mining, where
ore from deep
veins was first crushed into small pieces for further processing.
Here, the regularity and spacing of large indentations on stone
anvils indicate the use of cam-operated ore
stamps, much like the devices of later
medieval mining.
Such mechanically deformed anvils have
been found at numerous Roman silver and gold mining sites in
Western Europe, including at Dolaucothi
(Wales
), and on the
Iberian
peninsula
, where the datable examples are from the 1st and
2nd century AD. At Dolaucothi, these trip-hammers were
hydraulic-driven and possibly also at other Roman mining sites,
where the large scale use of the
hushing and
ground sluicing technique meant that large amounts of water
were directly available for powering the machines.
Medieval Near East
Both
hydropowered and
wind powered trip hammers were used in the
medieval
Near East. In order to adapt
water wheels and
windmills for
gristmilling
purposes,
cams were used for raising and
releasing trip hammers to fall on a material.
Watermills and windmills with trip hammers were
used for grinding grain and
other
seeds to produce
meals, and many other
industrial uses such as
fulling cloth,
husking rice,
papermaking in
paper mills,
pulping
sugarcane, and
crushing metallic ores
before extraction.
Medieval Europe
Water-powered and mechanised trip hammers reappeared in
medieval Europe by the 12th century.
Their use
was described in medieval written sources of Styria
(in
modern-day Austria
), written in
1135 and another in 1175 AD. Both texts mentioned the use of
vertical
stamp mills for ore-crushing.
Medieval
French
sources of the years 1116 and 1249 both record the
use of mechanised trip hammers used in the forging of wrought iron. Medieval European trip
hammers by the 15th century were most often in the shape of the
vertical pestle stamp-mill, although they employed more frequent
use of the vertical waterwheel than earlier Chinese versions (which
often used the horizontal waterwheel). The well-known
Renaissance artist and inventor
Leonardo de Vinci often sketched trip
hammers for use in forges and even file-cutting machinery, those of
the vertical pestle stamp-mill type. The oldest depicted European
illustration of a
martinet forge-hammer is
perhaps the
Historia de Gentibus
Septentrionalibus of
Olaus Magnus,
dated to 1565 AD. In this woodcut image, there is the scene of
three martinets and a waterwheel working wood and leather bellows
of the
Osmund bloomery furnace. The recumbrent hammer was first
depicted in European artwork in an illustration by
Sandrart and
Zonca (dated 1621
AD).
Types
Three types of trip hammers were used, all requiring artificial
power to lift them. The
tail helve hammer or 'tilt
hammer' has a pivot at the centre of the helve on which it is
mounted, and is lifted by pushing the opposite end to the head
downwards. In practice the head on such hammers seems to have been
limited to one hundredweight (about 50 kg), but a very rapid
stroke rate was possible. This made it suitable for drawing iron
down to small sizes suitable for the cutlery trades.
There were therefore
many such forges known as 'tilts' around Sheffield
. They were also used in
brass battery works for making brass (or copper) pots
and pans. In battery works (at least) it was possible for one power
source to operate several hammers. The
belly helve
hammer was the kind normally found in a
finery forge, used for making
pig iron into forgeable bar iron. This was lifted
by cams striking the helve between the pivot and the head. The head
usually weighted quarter of a ton. This was probably the case
because the strain on a wooden helve would have been too great if
the head were heavier. The
nose helve hammer seems
to have been unusual until the late 18th or early 19th century.
This was lifted beyond the head.
The choice of which kind should be used in a particular context may
depend on the strain that its operation imposed on the helve. This
was normally of wood until the 19th century. Surviving nosehelves
and those in pictures appear to be of cast iron. This was replaced
by
James Nasmyth's steam-powered
drop hammer (invented in 1839 and
patented in
1842. However the forge had become less important following the
improvements to the
rolling mill that
went along with the adoption of
puddling from the end of the 18th
century.
References
- Needham, Volume 4, Part 2, 183.
- Needham, Volume 4, Part 2, 390.
- Needham, Volume 4, Part 2, 184.
- Needham, Volume 4, Part 2, 392.
- Needham, Volume 4, Part 2, 393.
- Needham, Volume 4, Part 2, 392-393.
- Needham, Volume 4, Part 2, 394.
- Needham, Volume 4, Part 2, 391-392.
- Needham, Volume 4, Part 2, 395.
- Song, 91-93.
- Wilson, p.22.
- Wilson, p.16.
- Barry C. Burnham: "Roman Mining at Dolaucothi: The Implications
of the 1991-3 Excavations near the Carreg Pumsaint",
Britannia, Vol. 28 (1997), pp. 325-336 (333-335)
- J. Wahl: "Tres Minas: Vorbericht über die archäologischen
Ausgrabungen im Bereich des römischen Goldbergwerks 1986/87", in H.
Steuer and U. Zimmerman (eds): "Montanarchäologie in Europa", 1993,
p.123-152 (141; Fig.19)
- Wilson, p. 21, Fn.110.
- Wilson, pp. 21f.
- M.J.T. Lewis: "Millstone and Hammer: the Origins of Water
Power", (1997), Section 2
- Donald Routledge Hill, "Mechanical
Engineering in the Medieval Near East", Scientific
American, May 1991, pp. 64-69 (cf. Donald Routledge Hill, Mechanical Engineering)
- Needham, Volume 4, Part 2, 379.
- For example at Abbeydale Industrial Hamlet
- For example in the metalwork gallery in Birmingham Museum and Art
Gallery
Bibliography
- Burnham, Barry C.: "Roman Mining at Dolaucothi: The
Implications of the 1991-3 Excavations near the Carreg Pumsaint",
Britannia, Vol. 28 (1997), pp. 325-336 (333-335)
- Lewis, M.J.T.: "Millstone and Hammer: the Origins of Water
Power" (1997)
- Needham, Joseph: Science and Civilization in China: Volume
4, Part 2. (Taipei: Caves Books Ltd 1986).
- Song, Yingxing, translated with preface by E-Tu Zen Sun and
Shiou-Chuan Sun: T'ien-Kung K'ai-Wu: Chinese Technology in the
Seventeenth Century. (University Park: Pennsylvania State
University Press 1966).
- Wilson, Andrew: "Machines, Power and the Ancient Economy",
The Journal of Roman Studies, Vol. 92. (2002),
pp. 1-32 (16, 21f.)
External links