Reversible-Tip Soft-Face Hammer: Domed Rubber Tips Locked in Screw-On Sockets by an Internal Rib (West & Robinson, 1962)

Robert F. West and Walter H. Robinson of Connecticut received US 3,040,792, dated 26 June 1962, for The Stanley Works. A tubular socket screws onto a threaded boss at each end of the hammer's head. A rubber tip, domed at both ends, is pushed into the socket past an internal rib, which bites into it, and its rubber fills short grooves so it cannot turn. The tip can be pulled out and turned round to use its other end. On its first blows the tip's inner face squeezes into an off-centre hole in the boss and forms its own dowel, which stops the socket unscrewing. The patent gives no sizes; every size here is ours.