How-To
Video Vault: Nail Removal Tricks
Remove nails the right way to salvage boards and save your hands
Pulling nails from boards with a hammer claw using brute force is a sure way to create ugly gouges and to bruise your knuckles. In this gem from the Fine Homebuilding Video Vault, John Ross shows us how how finesse and a few special tools help to free bent, headless, and — the most stubborn of all — galvanized nails.
To learn more, read “Pulling stubborn nails” from Fine Homebuilding issue #193 (Feb/March 2008), pp.116-118.
Nice video.
There are several other effective tools for serious nail pulling. Come on FH, surely you have these at your disposal for demonstration. And yes, get yourself a bucket to toss those extracted nails into...collect them and make sure they are part of your next load of recycles.
Never pull towards other nails that are sticking out. Ask me how I know.
Throwing nails on the ground is dangerous and makes for more work. Throw them in a 5 gallon bucket instead.
Oh wow, John. One of my foremost peeves. I can't believe you pull nails and throw them on the ground. I personally have had a nail thru the shoe and into my foot, and if you have horses I hope you never experienced a horse with a nail in its hoof. It can be life threatening. Please take more care when trying to show something like this.