Heres a hammer I acquired recently because of its odd configuration. Sellens 0n page 220 calls it a boiler scaling hammer. Yesterday while perusing that website on Ozark crafts (thanks Oily that's a great site) they show a hammer of similar construction albeit with a much shorter handle that they describe as being used to recut grooves in millstones that have been worn down. Anyone know any other uses for this hammer or who made it ?
Since I have no boiler or millstone it will go to Baraboo next week to try to find a new owner.
12 1/2 inches long.

on the order of a welder's chipping hammer, but for scale build up in a steam boiler? yours looks to be fairly sharp, one I have  that style is much more rounded. I'll take a pic later and post it.

When I went back to the shop found a couple of more similar type hamers

I was a boiler tech. in the navy and when in port part of our duty was to get inside the boiler and scrape the tubes. We usually had wire brushes with a scraper on the end and small welders hammers for the clumped up stuff. Don't remember any particular hammer specific for the job, it was basically grab what we could find and get the job done.

Just ask any USN Deck Ape what a chipping hammer is used for.    Paint,rust,chip,paint,rust,chip,paint,rust,chip,  the never ending battle.

I have a few like that!! Used it to  chip rust & stone.

Quote from: jimwrench on September 12, 2013, 11:09:21 AM
Yesterday while perusing that website on Ozark crafts (thanks Oily that's a great site) they show a hammer of similar construction albeit with a much shorter handle that they describe as being used to recut grooves in millstones that have been worn down.

Yours isn't for re-facing mill stones.  This is a case, and a job, when size counts, and bigger is better.  Yours is far to light weight to do much good on a 3 foot diameter piece of granite.

Mill bill, used for dressing mill stones, usually are much bigger and heavier, have both faces in the same plane (at right angles to the axis, as in an adze) and have a loose head, held in a wooden holder (known as a thrift), sometimes using a removeable wooden wedge.. Smaller and lighter versions are a bricklayer's or mason's scutch... (modern ones have loose combs that are held in a steel head)

> (modern ones have loose combs that are held in a steel head)

Terminology in the US is totally screwy, Millstone dressers hammer, but also called a Bush hammer (it is , but only the small size is used for millstones, stone workers have larger sized ones also), also a Millers hammer, or a Masons large breaking hammer. also a furrowing hammer, in spite of the fact it isn't used to make the furrows (a different hammer is, originally a Millstone pick, even tho it really a hammer)

Knight's also shows a Bush type Furrowing hammer with a single leaf in one side, so I guess it could make a grove also

Oddly, the the top millstone in a horizontal mill was also called a millstone hammer....

Bad description on my part, scutch combs are replaceable (rather than loose) - they are double sided, and fit into a tapered slot in the hammer head. A bush hammer is a different beast, it has multiple loose plates held by a wedge - more a stone mason's tool than a mill stone dressing tool, but I would guess very useful in the millstone quarry for dressing the faces of stones when they are being made. Another type has mutiple indentations machines into the faces, like a chequereboard of mini pyramids - these may also be replaceable - used for much the same purpose - different hardnesses of stone require slightly different tools..

What ever the name is, it is a very useful hammer for chipping stone/brick or bodywork & rust,,, as long as it is the right tool for the job...