Editing West Ham United F.C. (section)

===Rivet Hammers===
The principal element of the badge is the crossed pair of [[rivet]] hammers, tools that were used in the shipbuilding industry. The [[Blackwall, London|Blackwall]] and [[Canning Town]] neighbourhoods surrounding the [[Thames Ironworks and Shipbuilding Company|Thames Ironworks]] echoed to the sound of hammers; [[steam hammer]]s, sledge hammers and rivet hammers.<ref>The shipbuilding description that follows comes from Brian Belton's book 'The Thames Ironworks' Chapter 5</ref>

Seven large mechanical steam hammers would punch small holes near the edges of the iron plates which would be joined to build the ships. The plates would be put in place and fixed together with rivets by teams of five, three inside the emerging vessel and two outside.

Inside the ship one member of the team would heat the rivets till they were white hot and, using ''Iron Fingers'' ([[blacksmith]]'s [[tongs]]), throw them to a second person, known as a "catch-boy" or "putter-in", who would pick the rivet up and place it the hole, also using tongs. The third person was known as the "holder-on" and he would then smash the rivet home with a sixteen-pound sledgehammer and then use his sledgehammer to hold the rivet in place while the men on the other side flattened the other end of the rivet.

Outside the ship, exposed to the elements, two men with rivet hammers – one right-handed, one left-handed – would hammer the protruding and still glowing rivet flat, so securing one of the many points necessary to link each of the ship's large plates.

The crossed hammers were also incorporated into the coat of arms of the [[County Borough of West Ham]] and those of its successor, the modern [[London Borough of Newham]].<ref>Archived material from LB of Newham website, description of each element of the coat of arms https://web.archive.org/web/20130602073325/http://apps.newham.gov.uk/democracy/civicamb/carms.htm</ref> The Thames Ironworks lay partly within what is now the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. However, the blacksmith's tongs in [[London Borough of Tower Hamlets#Coat of arms|that Borough's coat of arms]] represent the local saint, [[Dunstan]], the patron saint of [[Stepney]] and metalworkers,<ref>Met Borough of Stepney Official Guide, p29, 1961, Ed J Burrow and Co</ref> rather than the Ironworks.