The Collaborative International Dictionary
Trip hammer \Trip" ham`mer\ A tilt hammer.
Wiktionary
n. A powered machine used in a forge which repeatedly strikes work placed on an anvil.
Wikipedia
- agriculture to facilitate the labor of pounding, decorticating and polishing of grain;
- mining, where ore from deep veins was crushed into small pieces (though a stamp mill was more usual for this);
- finery forges, for drawing out blooms made from wrought iron into more workable bar iron;
- fabricating various articles of wrought iron, latten (an early form of brass), steel and other metals.
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 have been used in China as long ago as 40 BC or maybe even as far back as the Zhou Dynasty (1050 BC–221 BC) 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.
Usage examples of "trip hammer".
The mumbling stopped and the boy sat quite still, his face carved from gray granite, the nerve in his neck going like a trip hammer.
The car's armor rang like a trip hammer working, but that was just a fact of life.