bott hammer

plural bott hammers · alternative bott-hammer

1. obsoleteA hammer used to process flax.

   The same was also effected by the bott hammer, a flat mallet, with its face cut into grooves, the handle to it being curved, and this being repeatedly struck on a quantity of fibre spread out on a board, first on one side and then on the other.

   1868, Baden Henry Baden-Powell, Hand-book of the Economic Products of the Punjab, page 500

   2 more examples

   The bott-hammer is sometimes used for bruising or crushing fibrous plants; it consists of a wooden block, having on its under face channels or flutings which run across its surface; the block is fixed to a long belt-helve or handle, and may be worked singly, or several hammers may be worked in a row by machinery.

   1859, Alex. Hunter, “The Raw Products of India suited to the Manufacturing Wants of Great Britain”, in The Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal, volume 10, page 188

   In Austria and other European countries a more primitive, but, it is claimed, less injurious method of breaking is pursued, in which the fibre is opened with a "bott hammer" (batting hammer), which is made of wood ridged like a cook's implement for pounding steak.

   1918, Frank Moore Colby, The New International Encyclopaedia, volume 8, page 672