Basic Tips for Hammers and Nails

Swinging - Everyone is capable of bending a nail now and again. In order to reduce your chance of doing this, you should try to drive your nail home using the fewest possible number of hammer blows, which should never be more than three or four hammer blows. You should be holding the hammer at its end rather than in the middle, and you should swing your arm as if it were a clock pendulum, ensuring that your wrist is kept stiff throughout the entire swing. Make sure that you are always wearing protection for your eyes.

Starting One-Handed - When you start the nail with a single hand, it will make it possible for you to hold onto the work, or onto the side of a ladder with your other hand. This also makes it significantly easier for you to drive a nail into a place that is difficult for you to reach. One way that you can do this is to wedge your nail into the claw of your hammer tightly, with the nailhead facing the base of the head of the hammer. Now you can swing the hammer with the claw side facing the work piece, starting the nail, then lift the hammer off and away from the nail and begin to drive it in the normal way.

Another Nail Starting Idea - Grasp the head of the hammer in your first, holding the nail firmly in between your fingers so that the head is pressing against the hammer head's side or "cheek". Rap the nail point against the wall or the work piece in order to start the nail, taking care not to smash your fingers in the process.

Avoiding Smashed Fingers - Often when you are dealing with a small nail or a brad, starting it off can end in pain as a result of smashed fingers. If you want to keep your fingertips out of the way of harm, what you can do is stick the nail through a folded sheet of relatively stiff paper, using the paper as the holder for the nail while you are driving it into the work piece or the wall. Before you finally seat the nail, you can tear away the paper. Other excellent nail holders include needle nose pliers, tweezers and the teeth of a comb.

Create a Protective Cover - If you want to shield the surface of your work from an accidental blow from a hammer while driving in a finishing nail, drive the nail through a hole placed in a scrap of perf board with a ¼ inch hole. As you get near the surface, you can lift the perf board away and then use a nail set to sink the nail in.

Photo Credits: Darren Hester

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Categories:

Handy Man, Safety, Tools

Tags:

cheek, clock pendulum, fingertips, hammer blows, hammer head, hammers and nails, ladder, nail point, nailhead, needle nose, nose plier, rap, smashed fingers, stiff paper