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acebookCaring for your geological hammer – a guide
Once you've bought your hammer, it should last for years, but there are a few things you can do to keep it at its best.
Rust avoidance
| 20oz solid forged hammer
£24.95
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GeoLogic |
It goes without saying that leaving a hammer out in the rain is a recipe for rusting. But as any geologist will tell you, getting wet in the field is an occupational hazard!
To minimize the extent of rusting on a hammer, it's always wise to dry it off at the end of a
day's use. Rust stains can be quickly reduced by adding a little oil (WD40 is great, but you could
even use vegetable oil if nothing else is available). I don't tend to worry myself about small blemishes,
but if you want to remove these, then a scrub with steel wool will remove shallower stains; for more
persistent rust, you can squeeze on some lemon juice, add some salt, and leave to react overnight,
keeping the spot moist with lemon juice where possible. A quicker fix is to add a good squirt of
washing-up liquid to a small mug of water and soak the hammer in this for a few minutes. You might
need to repeat either of these methods a couple of times to completely remove the rust.
Whichever option you use, be sure to rinse and dry the hammer after use, to prevent
the cleaning solution from encouraging further rust!
Wooden hammers
| 18oz wooden shaft hammer
£15.99
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GeoLogic |
Many geologists prefer the feel of a wooden hammer shaft, but these do require careful storage. It is essential that the temperature and humidity in which the hammer is stored is kept at as constant as possible; fluctuations, such as might occur if the hammer is stored above a radiator or in an unheated shed, can cause the wood to become fragile and eventually snap.
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