The background "walls" in Terraria are incredibly tedious to break down. Maybe it's because the hammer is so. damn. slow. or maybe it's just a figment of my imagination since the wall tiles have bigger sprites than non-wall sprites.

It's important to rid your base of places where monsters can spawn but I can't convince myself to clear out all the dirt and replace it with stone at the current speed. I understand the standard ways of [breaking the background](https://gaming.stackexchange.com/questions/22377/how-do-you-destroy-walls-behind-your-house) but even the most advanced hamaxes still have a speed of slow. Is there an item that speeds up this task? Or a particular method that you use to break it as fast as possible?