Questions about fastening drywall with nails.
Quick couple of questions here. When I put up drywall I typically tack it in place with a few nails. Then after a few sheets I go back and finish off with screws. In the books and articles they recommend that a drywall hammer be used instead of a regular hammer because it’s “less likely to tear the paper” on the drywall. Yet , I see a lot of photos in the articles showing pros tacking drywall in place with a regular claw hammer. I’ve compared drywall hammers with regular hammers and can’t see much of a difference.
Don’t want to buy and carry more tools than I need, especially ones that don’t get used much. So, is a drywall hammer really better for nailing up sheets of drywall?
While I have your attention, if you care to comment, how useful are other ‘specialty’ hammers compared to a standard hammer? I’m wondering about roof hatchets, drywall hatchets, carpenters hatchets, brick hammers, etc. Seems as though a lot of things get built with a simple claw hammer.
Replies
You might find the hatchet end of a drywall hammer to be useful. But I can't see that it would be a big deal.
Drywall hammers have a large head and more crown to set the nail without breaking through the paper and make a nice dimple for mud. The hatchet end can be useful for making "adjustments". I have one, but always used the claw hammer for the few nails I use.
I bought a Vaughan builders hatchet at home depot just three days ago. They were being clearanced out for $7.99. It has a waffle head and a rather nice wood handle. I don't normally need a hatchet when I build, but they could come in handy for rehabbing. It's more likely going to go in the camp box.
Brick hammers are used to cut bricks, or to hammer on stuff like stakes, and spiders, I hate spiders.
Roof hatchets are for wood shingles, so I guess they would work on walls too. They also have a gauge you can use to control your exposure. Which reminds me of carpenters suspenders, which also are useful for limiting exposure while holding up enormous bags of specialty tools. Apparently there were plumbers suspenders at one time, but they were discontinued due to lack of interest amongst plumbers.
Most specialty tools are unnecessary, but are the best tool to use for the job they were designed to do.
I find a straight claw ripping hammer is useful as a hatchet occasionally, but a carpenters hatchet would do a better job especially if you were working with natural, rough sawn, or poor quality wood.
Shinglers probably use cordless saws to cut the shingles these days. I believe the shingles in the early days had extremely straight grain and cut easily with a hatchet, but the shingles now are not as straight grained.
The two cases I've seen where a hatchet is useful are wood shingle/shake roofing and rock lath hanging.
I don't know if rock lath is even still available, but watching a couple of experienced rock lathers working (ca 1965) was a sight to behold.
Rock lath came in 16x48" pieces. It was basically a coarse drywall, with a brown paper cover on both sides and a brownish gypsum core. I vaguely recall the nails used were about midway between drywall nails and roofing nails. One nail top and one nail bottom per stud.
The lathers would nail up full pieces horizontally so long as they fit, then cut down pieces to fit corners, edges, or simply where the framing went wonky (which was often in the 1910 farmhouse my parents bought and rehabbed). Cutting a piece of lath was a 1-2 second operation -- score the board with the edge of the hatchet, then break, and maybe use the hatchet again to break the paper on the back side (or maybe just tear it -- neatness didn't count). If an edge ran a little long, a few whacks with the hatchet would fix that up. Outlet box? 2-3 whacks with a hatchet handled that.
I'm guessing they got paid by the job/square, since they worked furiously -- the pair of them finishing the 2000 sq ft house in, I think, less than two days. And they left behind a floor covered in about 6" of rubble.
(I understand that the guys who hung the old wood lath also used a hatchet.)
Hatchets are also nice personal protection devices.
Those old timers had to be tough. I have tendinitis and carpel tunnel, I couldn't do that work for a day. I worked in a creepy old house once which had that rock lath around the furnace room, it never got plastered though.
Also, it had a wooden floor in part of the basement. With dirt under it. Don't step on it or you'll break through. And gobs of mice were down there too. I worked for an electrical contractor and we were troubleshooting why the outlet quit working for the tv. Found it had a plug on the wiring and it was plugged into a trouble light from the depression era that had totally decomposed to copper and iron ore, and no longer would conduct electricity to the tv. Ran a new wire to the outlet, added a pull chain lampholder, added a breaker, and got the heck out of there.
It did have a somewhat recent breaker box, but was knob and tube wiring, with three 110v circuits only.
I remember my grandfather's basement, with cords draped across the ceiling in several directions. He had a small workshop down there, and would unplug/plug several cords to reconfigure from lighting the workbench to powering the drill press to whatever else. Everything, to my recollection, powered off of one overhead light.
I was in the home of a man like that who died at 95 years old, about 20 years ago. He was my friends grandfather. His basement shop was something else, full of antique stuff that was probably left from his dad. I especially liked the car ramps made from model T truck running boards.
The wiring was scary.
Specialty hammers are for special trades/skills. You can do a job better and faster with one of them, but if it is an occasional job you do, then hardly worth while to buy and keep track of.
I think I must have over a dozen different hammers, but if only hanging a few sheets of rock or a couple squares of shingles, I don't bother digging out a drywall hatchet or roofing hatchet. The time spent digging it out and adjusting my aim is greater than the time saved by greater speed in production.
I do like to switch from framming hammer to trim hammer for interior work though.
BTW Dan, blades on a roofing hatchet are very handy for flipping asphalt shingles too, and not just for splitting cedar shingles and shakes
On mason hammers, I woulddefinitely use them instead of a regular. Striking the harder masonry can cause damage and potentially even personal injury if you use a regular hammer which has harder steel and can break or chip. Also using the claws to cut brick is not only harder, but less accurate, and it will wear downthe claws needed for carpentry pretty fast.