Unfortunately, our knowledge base on tools is limited. I have been trying to learn as much as possible from whatever sources are out there. One thing I have learned for sure, most of the tools you see on ebay are garbage.
Soon, there will be a new book out with alot of original tools photograhed in it, which will certainely help everyone out. In the meantime, I reference the Mordecai drawings. They have dimensions with each item too, which as Pete says about shells; measure -measure- measure. The Mordecai drawings are in Ripley's fine book Artillery and Ammunitiion of the Civil War in the chapter 'art of the artilleryman' #11. You have this book -right ?? You absolutely should. It's cheap, thorough, and full of useful info [ although some info is 'dated' since the book was published ].
Also, Bob Gregory's beautiful new book, Civil War Ordinance, an Introduction, deals with alot of tools and crates and info galore.
Anyway, back to the two posts above. The Mordecai drawings show the artillery hammer as made of copper, not steel. If it was made of copper, it was meant to be used around live shells or powder or fuzes. I personally have never seen one. Wouldn't think they would last that long in the field. But I bet every wagon had an iron hammer around to fix this and that. That is why I see 'artillery hammers' for sale all the time.
And to answer John's question; there was a wood fuze mallet. I figure this was used for driving the wood paper time fuze adaptors. There was also a tool called a ' fuze setter' which by the nature of the shape and a personal guess, I would say would be made out of brass. My thoughts are this was used to drive both the wood adptors and probably the brass tapered seacost watercap drive fuze. I would also assume that the paper time fuzes were tapped down tightly and set into the adaptor also, be the adaptor made of wood or any of the metals used. I welcome anyone's input or knowledge of the use of these tools, because my comments are my theory
