Spike maul
hand tool
A spike maul is a hand tool used to drive railroad spikes in railroad track work. It is also known as a spiking hammer.
Description
Spike mauls are akin to sledge hammers, typically weighing from 8 to 12 pounds (4 to 5 kg) with handles 30 to 36 inches (80 to 90 cm) long.
They have elongated double faced hardened steel heads. The head is typically over 12 inches (30 cm) long to allow the user to drive spikes on the opposite side of the rail without breaking the handle.
Some spike mauls have symmetrical heads, but most have a slightly longer thinner side and a shorter larger diameter side of equal weight. The long side allows a user to spike over abnormally tall rails, and to drive spikes down next to highway crossing planks. The shorter side provides more surface area which requires less accuracy for normal spiking.
There are two typical patterns of spike mauls:
Bell: The more common, bell spike mauls are mostly cylindrical in shape.
Standard: Which feature a square cross section, and a squared tapered end opposite the normal driving face.
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This entry incorporates text from “Spike maul” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.