Glossary

There are some bushes out there that we’d all probably like to hammer.  Barberries would be close to the top of my list, with thorns that leave a sting behind when they penetrate the skin.

But that’s not what this hammer’s for.  This one is for softening surfaces or edges of stone or block.  It looks a lot like a meat tenderizer, and it’s function is similar. The head of the hammer is heavy, allowing it to pack a punch when it strikes stone or concrete block, and the teeth on the head of the hammer, when they repeatedly strike a sharp edge, roughen that edge, giving it a more natural look.

It’s often used on materials that have been saw-cut, to return them to a more natural appearance, rather than a man-made, manipulated one.  Using this same hammer on those same rough material edges also serves to make the material a bit safer or less injurious should someone fall onto the material’s edge.

On flat stone surfaces, this hammer is used to make that surface less smooth, which can be important if the stone is being used as a step.  The rougher texture gives pedestrians more traction as they go up and down a set of stone steps, making it less likely that they slip and fall when the stone is wet or temperatures are at or near freezing.

This is typically a tool reserved for pros because it’s so specialized; a homeowner would likely only ever use a hammer like this once or twice during a landscape renovation project.  Unless you cook a lot of steaks using extra tough meat.  Then maybe you’d have more uses for it.