Air hammer (fabrication)

An air hammer can stretch or shrink (shape) a variety of metals, from thin aircraft aluminums, all the way down to 10-gauge steel.

This tool was later scaled down for sheet metal, as the 1930s saw the advent of monocoque aluminum aircraft.

The other new device, hitting at twice or three times the speed of the rivet gun, was the stone carver's hammer – a great blessing for smooth and rapid dressing of granite and marble.

In 1930 F.J. Hauschild adapted the original stone carver's hammer into a portable hand-held steel tube frame for the purpose of straightening auto bodies.

Copying Hauschild’s patented design, a pneumatic tool company in Chicago marketed a number of "destined-to-be-classic" pneumatic planishing hammers, both hand-held for auto body work, and also free-standing ones, with a variety of throat depths for industry and manufacturing.