What's the flat side of a claw hammer called?

[chris French]

This came up as an aside on a friend's blog.

So has the flat , 'hammering' side of a claw hammer got a name?

[John Rumm]

[Phil L]

The head is the entire thing attached to the shaft.

He means 'face', and the sides are called cheeks.

[philipuk]

Dunno, but it's unprintable when it lands on your fingers.

[George]

Actually it does not have a name and erely called the 'hammer head'

[Man at B&Q]

arbiter.

MBQ

[Skipweasel]

I've always called it the face.

[PCPaul]

Or you could go and change it, then tell him he's wrong, Wikipedia says so ;-)

Seriously, if you have a better answer go and spend five minutes fixing it. That way it will get better.

Apart from the politics behind the scenes that are ruining it, of course...

[Dave]

Pein. Put hammer types into google and take a look.

Dave

[boltmail]

That's the other end, where a claw hammer has a claw, a ball pein hammer has a ball pein and a sledge hammer, erm, well it doesn't always work.

[PCPaul]

That's because sledge hammers are difficult to pin down, being two-faced.

[Andy Dingley]

It's called either the face or the pein.

"Peen" (two e's) is a verb, meaning to hit something with the pein ("ei").

The distinction between peins and faces is blurry these days, but faces are always nearly-flat and peins may be shaped. At one time it was only a face if it was a separate piece welded on, otherwise it was a mere pein. Sledgehammers or lump hammers are still (sometimes) described as having peins rather than faces, because they're so obviously a mere protrusion of the head, not a shaped and flattened portion.

[Roger]

The message from Dave contains these words:

I have consulted several dictionaries without finding an entry for either pein or ball pein which is funny given the huge number of hits for pein with google. My spell checker denies pein's existence as well.

The dictionaries all refer to peen rather than pein and define it as the opposite end of a hammer head to the face end.

The closest I could get to pein was peine in the Shorter Oxford. Apparently it means pain in French which seem quite appropriate for the business end of a hammer. :-)

[Dave Osborne]

That's very interesting. I've always thought of a ball pein (peen) hammer as having a "ball" at one side and a "pein/peen" at the other, but from what you have said, ball-pein means "a pein in the shape of a ball". Now I think about it, a pin hammer has a "cross pein".

My vote goes for "face" for the flat end.

Rumble

[The Medway Handyman]

Striking face?

[tim (not at home)]

And for tomorrow's lesson, we will disscect a pair of pliers :-)

tim

[grumpyat]

Hitting bit - face Other side - pein [cross, ball or whatever]...unless it is a claw then it all goes a bit pear shaped!!

do you know what the slightly reduced diameter bit [between the face and the bit in the middle where it attaches to the shaft is called]?? It is the poll [or that is what I was told many eons ago]

[<me9]

dict pein 2 definitions found

From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:

Pein \Pein\, n. See {Peen}. [1913 Webster]

From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:

Peen \Peen\ (p[=e]n), n. [Cf. G. pinne pane of a hammer.] (a) A round-edged, or hemispherical, end to the head of a hammer or sledge, used to stretch or bend metal by indentation. (b) The sharp-edged end of the head of a mason's hammer. [Spelt also {pane}, {pein}, and {piend}.] [1913 Webster]

[Frank Erskine]

Unless they're box-jointed...

:-)

[Mike Barnes]

The New Shorter Oxford English Dictionary (on CD) has:

peen /pi:n/ n. Also pein. L17. [Origin uncertain: cf. next, PANE n.2] The end of a hammer head opposite to the face, esp. when sharp.

...where "next" is...

peen /pi:n/ v.t. E16. [App. of Norse origin: cf. Sw. dial. pena, päne, Da. dial. pene, paene, Norw. dial penna, paenna.] Beat thin with a hammer, hammer out; strike with the peen of a hammer.