Dear Dale:
Your description is dead on with regard to the method I employ. I found
out that I can really get with the program when driving in fifty penny nails
using a 28 ounce framing hammer. Those little finishing nails are the ones
that give me the most difficulty.
Yours Truly,
Clifford Wilson
----- Original Message -----
From: Dale Leavens
To: blindhandyman@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Tuesday, August 24, 2010 10:06 AM
Subject: Re: [BlindHandyMan] hammering a nail in?
I built a three story 16 by 32 foot addition to this house several years ago
now driving each and every nail by hand the old fashioned way with a hammer. It
is a skill but it helps to learn how to do it correctly. I often listen to
people driving nails as I walk about town and I can hear who has got it and who
does not. At the risk of sounding sexist, and I am unashamedly sexist though
not in the way implied, my observation is that most females and many children
do not employ a hammer correctly. some of this is probably uncertainty about
strength or the strength required but I expect it is mostly a matter of
training and confidence.
Intuitively it seems that one would be more accurate at hitting a nail when
holding the hammer near the head and using the rest of the handle as a sort of
balancing lever. Actually this is incorrect. You may like to choke up on the
hammer for starting a nail but even that isn't all that effective.
Here is how I do it.
Grasp the hammer back toward the far end of the handle.
Place the nail with the other hand, I use the right for striking and the left
for setting the nail.
I hold the nail between the index finger and thumb unless it is one of those
God forsaken roofing nail or a very little finishing nail in which case I
usually set it between my index and long fingers.
I raise the hammer and gently tap the head of the nail as a targeting strike,
which if successful I follow with a firmer stroke, creating a sort of
tap tap
tap tap
tap tap
rhythm. When starting this is usually only required a couple of times until the
nail is well enough set.
I then withdraw the left hand resting it near the nail and reaching across with
the index finger to touch the nail while I withdraw the hammer and do a target
tap from a longer distance with my finger present, then withdraw the finger and
hammer and strike the nail as strongly as I like again with that
tap bang
tap bang
tap bang
rhythm.
Well, that is the technique, in actual practice I don't do nearly so much of
the tap bang rhythm now as I once did though I probably do when I have not been
laying a lot of nails in the recent past.
the real trick though is not to choke up on the hammer. You will drive a lot
more nails a lot faster and with a lot less energy and actually your aim and
direction of the forces to drive the nail are far more accurate. You will bend
far fewer nails and use far less effort as well.
There are a couple of builders around town who, when they have new helpers with
them and see me passing their work site will call me over to show how I can
drive nails. I generally get a coffee and some information about their project
for the price of driving half a dozen nails which seems to have impressed them
enough to prove to their helpers I can do it. I suppose it comes back to the
difficulties some people have in understanding how anything can be done without
sight.
Just now I am disassembling a cement breeze block wall with a masonry chisel
and a 4 lb. mallet and a 10 lb. sledge. I wish I could find an accurate way of
targeting that sledge! I may have to rent a jack hammer again. I filled the
block with cement when I laid the wall nearly 20 years ago and it turns out I
also put some rebar in some of the cavities. I had forgotten doing that!
Hope this is helpful
Dale leavens.
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