Making a Hammer Stall & Documentation.

A hammer stall, also known as a hammer cap, is a leather device like a thumb stall which is placed over the hammer on a flint lock as a safety measure. With the stall in place, the flint in the jaws of the cock can not strike the hammer face, and therefore prevents accidental discharge of the gun. Although the hammer stall seems to have been mainly used by the military in the 18th century, it is possible that civilians and militia could have used them. To date, I have been unable to find any original images or originals in museum collections. Being made of leather it is possible that none have survived, though I would have thought that some of the larger military arms collections would still have intact stalls.

Quotes:

Items used for leather-work  From top and left to right: A leather palm pad, used to push the needle through the leather if it is a tight fit. I did not need to use this when making this Hammer Stall; an awl, beeswax for waxing the linen thread; needle, and linen thread.

Further research has shown that "Boot" may not be a period term. Hammer stall or hammer cap or even in one case the term "Thumb stall" was used. The term "Frizzen" is apparently a 19th century term derived from a similar German word.

On this one I placed the suspension tab on the back half of the stall because I had more of that leather, I was using scraps. But the tab can go on the back or the front half.

Here you can see a hammer stall I made some years ago for my fusil. The stall is in place on the hammer or steel.