The basics of metalworking in the household: we make a collar and a crowbar-nail puller with our own hands. Crowbar nail puller: how to choose the right construction tool
The principle of the lever has been used by man since the very moment he became rational. Rolling off a stone or a log, lifting a heavy object, breaking off a piece of rock - all this requires remarkable effort, but with a lever system, even a weak person can move a solid load. Today, the classic lever is embodied in such a tool as a crowbar nail puller, however, a device for extracting nails is present in various tools, for example, in a hammer or mount, and can also be independent..
Why we started with a crowbar is quite understandable, this is a lever anywhere, it is almost impossible to bend it (human weight, in any case, is not enough for this), and the length allows you to move objects with a large mass. A smaller version is often used by anti-social elements for other purposes, but for breaking locks.
Yes, in fact, and as an independent element, the puller can be used to open boxes, lift various objects, it is convenient for them to scratch their backs. IN computer games this tool is effectively used by various characters as a weapon.
What does it take to pull out a nail?
There was a time when they used wooden nails, for their use in the boards, they first drilled holes of suitable diameter and only then connected the individual parts of the structure in such a simple way. However, the dowel (a nail made of wood) is almost impossible to pull out, you can’t make a mistake. Another thing is metal fasteners with wide caps, they can be picked up with a puller - a tool with a flattened end, in which a wedge-shaped slot is made, convenient for gripping a nail.
However, it is not enough to pick up, you also need to pull it out, but how to do this if the fasteners are tightly compressed by wood fibers or wedged deep in the concrete panel? The leverage will help, and that is why all the tugs are made long enough and with a bend near the hook, which acts as a support. The material also plays a role, for the most part the tools for pulling out nails are made hardened, but someone will like a solid titanium nail hammer, for the reliability of which you can not be afraid.
Everything for the convenience of working with the tool
Modern industry is constantly evolving, new opportunities are opening up to improve the characteristics of tools, including those that require considerable effort when using, which means they should lie comfortably in the hand.
In particular, most hammers with the additional function of a nail puller are equipped with a rubber handle, thanks to which they are clamped in the palm of your hand like a glove. For increased strength of the pullers, heat treatment of high-carbon steel, a common tool material, is also used.
When choosing a hammer with a puller, pay more attention to single-element tools that have more high reliability than those whose working part is mounted on a separate handle.
Modern hammers for roofers are interesting, the puller on them is somewhat modernized. One of the prongs of the “fork” of such a tool is elongated and pointed, which allows you to drive it into the wood with one movement, freeing your hands or thereby stopping the fall. A kind of alpenstock, combined with a dergach. However, do not get carried away with a variety of form factors, the main thing in a nail extractor is the flat surface of the blade brought under the head and its strength.
A nail puller is almost always present in our construction inventory, and it is rarely purchased as a separate tool, it is much more convenient when it is bundled with its constant partners - a hammer or crowbar.
The design and purpose of the nail puller
There is no person who would ideally drive nails into any surface without a single mistake. The percentage of mistakes made, of course, depends on the experience of the worker, but never drops to zero. Therefore, one cannot do without a nail puller on a construction site. In addition, quite often it is required not during the construction process, but already for the destruction of, for example, a wooden building. Many people burn the remains of a rotten building and use ashes, but all properties will be spoiled in it, so they are first eliminated.
It is not always easy to get a nail with small wire cutters, especially if the material is quite strong and the nail is long. Here school physics and the law of levers come to the rescue. Even the most stubborn nail can be reached with little effort if you have a long lever with a firm grip on the end. From here it is easy to guess about the design of the nail puller, which is quite simple. A properly pointed end of the grip will help pry even the most deeply driven nail.
In general, our tool looks something like this: a long handle, at the end of which there is a bend, ending with a flattened forked tip with a slot. The length of the tool depends on the severity of the tasks that it can perform, this is the length of the lever, which is directly related to the effort expended on pulling out the nail. The pointed end easily crawls under the nail head, which may not even protrude above the surface of the material. The slot firmly grabs the head, and the bend as a stop allows you to smoothly shift the center of gravity of the tool a little back so that the pointed end rises, dragging the nail with it.
Thus, without unnecessary sudden movements and universal efforts, you will get any unsuccessful or unwanted fasteners. We have already said that most often we can meet a nail puller as an additional head on a hammer. For most chores, this is quite enough, and it’s convenient, you can remove it immediately at the time of driving a nail. The length of the hammer handle is enough as a lever. But for more serious work, loaders and carpenters always have an individual tool, moreover, made of high-strength materials. A nail puller is often used not only for pulling nails, especially if it is highly durable.
Titanium nail puller - how to buy a good tool?
Looking at the design, it seems that choosing such a tool is as easy as shelling pears. But if you experienced master, then you will be very demanding in your approach. In addition, the assortment of seemingly monotonous devices is quite wide. For example, only in length you can expect to find a purchase from 32 cm to 1 m, weight can reach up to 4 kg, although the lightest options will only pull 0.5 kg. The material for manufacturing is also different, most often it is high-carbon steel, but the titanium nail puller is considered the leader in strength.
When choosing a tool, it is still important to look at some parameters. First, immediately pay attention to the tip. It should be fairly flat, sharp and strong. Sometimes only the tip is made of durable material, and everything else is made of cheaper metal, or even wood. It happens that the tip is protected by coatings, paintwork or anti-corrosion. Yes, over time, it will be erased on numerous nail heads, but it will still extend the service life, preventing rust and spillage at least at first.
Next, select the length and weight. If you are in the mood for a large amount of work, for example, or windows, dismantling large-sized furniture and similar operations, then do not hesitate to take a nail puller about 1 m long. If your plans are limited to dismantling boxes, repairing benches and other trifles, then the option of 30-40 cm is quite suitable.
And the weight should be chosen small, although it is responsible for the efforts made. That is, the greater the weight of the tool, the less effort you will need to make to get the nail. But do not forget that it is up to you personally to carry and deftly wield a heavy tool, which means that the chance to get tired quickly is quite high. So you have to choose best option to make moderate effort for the job, and that the tool itself is efficient but not heavy. A weight of 1 kg is considered just right for these criteria.
The choice of tool includes an assessment of the material, workmanship of the tip, as well as the length of the lever and the weight of the entire fixture.
We create a homemade version
For those who are particularly skilled, we offer a way to independently make a set of the most commonly used types of nail pullers.
How to make a nail puller with your own hands - a step by step diagram
Step 1: Nozzle preparation
To do this, you will need steel wires of different diameters, for the smallest nails 0.5 mm is enough, but for heavy work you can even take reinforcement. The tip must be processed first. To do this, flatten the end with a hammer on the anvil (for reinforcement, you should not flatten, you just have to cut the material to the desired sharpness, you can do it on an emery wheel). Next, with a regular hacksaw for metal, cut a slot of moderate depth. Too long will force us to drive a nail deep into it, and this is not necessary at all, extra work.
Step 2: Handling the nozzle
Now you should take a needle file and process the edges to remove bumps, notches and other defects that will certainly form when working with metal. Next we have to bend this nozzle, try to do it in two steps. First, the thick part of the wire is slightly bent, which is located before the transition to the flattened one. And after it, the part that is closer to the area, which will be carried out, bends down.
Many also manage to harden such a workpiece, if you have such an opportunity, and you are sure that the wire material allows you to do this, do not bypass this idea. Now go with a file and sandpaper, and then with polishing paste all over the tip, it is almost ready, so we are polishing it. Thus, the entire set of tips is made, according to your taste and whim, if you want to have a nail puller for almost every hat size.
Step 3: Use
Now it remains to attach the resulting tip to the handle, if any. But do not despair, if there is no reliable handle, you can attach it to an existing tool, for example, to the same hammer. You can increase the value of the lever by placing a bar under the tool after the nail head is in the slot. Of course, the work will not be instantaneous, but you will achieve the effect. Since there is no huge lever, sometimes it will be difficult to get the nail completely, but, having pulled it out halfway, it is easy to finish the job even with pliers, it will take a minimum of effort.
The home set of various devices, equipment and hand-held auxiliary devices in the workshop as a whole is determined, first of all, by the personal interests and needs of the craftsman in the house. Since the general type of activity home master is not confined to one specificity, then the range of tools in the workshop should be suitable for all occasions in life.
This article, discussing the main tools that should be thoroughly settled in the back room of a home master, will deal with a nail puller and a woodworking device - a planer. Let's start the discussion.
Burglar's tool: nail puller
Ideally, the nail puller should be formed from a single piece of scrap, its workpiece diameter should be at least 20 mm, and its length should be 750 mm. Classic type hand tool looks like a curved wedge made of metal, with a cone flattened to the end, flattened into a plane. The rolled plane should have a groove divided in two, which is designed to be captured by the “head” of the nail.
The impact of the nail puller is based on the resistance of the wedge against the wedged surfaces, that is, on the material into which the nail is hammered and the nail itself. And also on the impact on the principle of the lever, during the work of pulling out the fastening element.
It is permissible to pull out nails with a length of about 20 cm with a good quality nail puller. With a severe course of the procedure being performed, it is worth trying to pull out the nail, making efforts in jerks. In extreme cases, you can make several blows with a sledgehammer on the body of the device.
With excessive force applied, it may happen that the nail head comes off. There is nothing to be done here, you will have to take a hacksaw to separate the rest of the fastener. The main thing is that in the work we will get the separation of the component parts that were put together by this fastener. You can, of course, apply a slightly different method, for example, grab the rest of the nail with pliers and turn it a little around its axis. In this embodiment, the fasteners should give in and calmly come out of the raw material.
Nail pullers were previously produced at metallurgical plants, now it is permissible to freely buy such a device on sale, and even with a rubberized handle for ease of working with it. A nail puller with a rubberized handle from the manufacturer Stayer can be purchased for only 77 rubles. A forged reinforced crowbar nail puller from the ZUBR manufacturer in retail costs from 196 rubles to 530 rubles.
Hand woodworking tool: planer
A planer is a hand-held woodworking tool designed for planing. Use it when necessary to give wooden surfaces parts of various configurations of the desired shape, plane, straightness or roughness. It can be used to create extended grooves on wood parts, by the way, of various shapes: tongues, "quarters", etc.
The object in question consists of a block with a notch (through socket), where the cutter is mounted, made of steel at a certain angle. The steel cutter, in turn, is also sharpened at a certain angle; there can be two of them in the design of a hand-held product. The cutting angle of the knife can vary in values of 45-80 degrees, even more, it all depends on the purpose of the device. The pad itself was previously almost always made from wood raw materials, modern instrument pads are metal.
The variety of jointers is actually quite wide, from total weight you can emphasize one of the most versatile models called a grinder or a device with a single cutter. A planer with a single knife is used to level a large area of uneven ground. The grinder is designed for finishing, the cutting angle of the knife, which is around 49 degrees.
Jointer cutters are sharpened at the factory. If over time the device has become poorly planed, then the knife can be brought with a whetstone. With your own hands, this procedure can be reproduced using a wooden block with the same angle (the cutting edge of the knife at an angle of 7-8 degrees relative to the surface of the device plane).
To do this, we put forward the cutter to the desired size and fix it. The bar is fixed with a wire, which is attracted by the pliers "tightly", but only until the end of the work. After sharpening, the line of the cutter should be parallel to the surface of the plane of the device in question. The line of the cutting edge may be disturbed, since the width of the knife has a slightly smaller width than the hole (notch) of the woodworking fixture.
A planer with a metal box from Kraftool with a 50 mm knife can cost about 1098 rubles. The same device from the same representative, but in a wooden box, can be purchased at a price of 370 rubles. A rather good quality device from "Rashpel-Hobel" can be found in retail at a cost of 660 rubles.
Of course, as a rule, a planer is used if there is no electricity at the construction site, or, in extreme cases, a certain increased accuracy is needed. With the expected large volumes of work, the electric planer is more preferred, and labor productivity immediately increases significantly. Power tools from the manufacturer of hand tools ZUBR are offered in retail chains at a price of 1,700 rubles. The trade and production brand Hyundai offers its customers a woodworking tool from 2400 rubles.
There is some wisdom regarding the work of a planer on wood flooring. The subject under discussion is planing wood along the direction of the fibers, and not across the grain and against the direction. Otherwise, scratches form on the surface. To determine the direction of the fiber, a hand is run over the material. First, hold the palm in the direction in one direction along the plane of the raw material, then in the other. If the palm has the ability to, as it were, slide over the surface, then this is the direction along the fiber, respectively, you need to plan in this direction.
With damaged hats that cannot be unscrewed. Due to its shape and strength, it can also be used for dismantling wooden, plastic and other structures that can be separated as a result of the applied force.
How a nail puller works
The tool may have different shape, but regardless of the variety, it always has the same working part. It is a flat wedge, shaped like a spatula with a forked tip. The longitudinal slot on it has a special groove that allows you to capture the head of a nail or screw. Subsequently, the tool is used as a lever for pulling out the fastener.
Usually the tool is made of carbon steel. It has high hardness. Also on sale you can find cheaper nail pullers made of weak alloys, which are of little use for dismantling work. To identify low-quality tools, it is enough to scratch their working part using the tip of a nail. At good tool steel is hard, so scratches do not form. If a bad nail puller is tested, then a mark will appear on it directly in the metal, and not just on the paint.
Where are nailers used?
The need to pull out nails may be required in various circumstances. Such a tool is used by people of dozens of professions. First of all, it is necessary for builders, as well as for finishers who perform repair work. It is convenient to tear off old floorboards with a nail puller, tear off wall lining, dismantle the roof from slate. The need for it arises during disassembly wooden fences. Nail pullers are much more compact than crowbars, so they can be used for accurate demolition brickwork. Thanks to a flat spatula, it is convenient to push them under the brick, and using a lever to tear it off the wall.
Also, the tool is used by loaders and couriers involved in the delivery of goods in the crate. Due to its increased strength, this device can be fully used for striking during dismantling. Of course, a hammer makes everything much more convenient, but when the latter is not at hand, it is quite possible to get by with a nail puller.
Varieties of nail pullers
This is a highly demanded tool, for which there are no analogues in the performance of certain types of dismantling work, therefore dozens of well-known brands are engaged in its production. Each of them strive to improve the design, making it more convenient for performing certain tasks. In this regard, there are several very successful varieties of this tool that are used everywhere. Conventionally, they can be divided into ordinary nail pullers and those combined with other types of tools.
Ordinary
Such a tool is intended solely for tearing nails. He has small size up to 40 cm. At its end, an ordinary handle with an overlay is provided, similar to that found on hammers. This is a relatively light nail puller, allowing you to work mainly with fasteners. He is quite capable of tearing off floorboards or dismantling wooden boxes. Purely nail pullers are not very popular, since for a similar cost you can purchase a more advanced tool that can perform at least one more additional function.
There are also more compact devices designed to work with small nails, which are usually used in furniture assembly, as well as knocking together small boxes. They have the size of an ordinary large one, with the exception that they are equipped with a slotted spatula at the end. With the help of such a device, fasteners can be removed, creating minimal damage to the surface from which they break out. This tool is also suitable for dismantling push pins that are firmly embedded in wood. They can also rip off the clips that hold the interior plastic elements of the car's interior.
Combined
Such a nail puller combines one or more additional tools:
- Ticks.
- Mount.
Nail pullers compatible with crowbar have dimensions up to 150 cm. At their second end there is a flat blade or a pointed wedge. It is a versatile construction and demolition tool and the easiest to work with because it has a large leverage, which reduces the load when pulling out nails. With a similar device, it is good to dismantle floorboards, benches, wooden buildings, as well as roof battens. In addition, the tool can be used as an ordinary scrap. Its forked blade is quite large, therefore it is not able to capture small carnations with a small diameter cap. It will not work if it is necessary to carefully disassemble small structures, the components of which must be kept intact, preventing the appearance of dents in the wood.
Enjoy great popularity hammers, they have a nail puller on the opposite side of the striker. They have a small leverage, so pulling out fasteners with such a device is quite difficult. At the same time, such structures also have advantages. First of all, they are compact and able to fit in a toolbox. Hammers can quite cope with tearing out small nails, but for long ones their leverage is too short. The bulk of the load falls on the hammer handle, which is usually made of wood. Overdone and pressing too hard, it is quite possible to break it. If you plan to make great efforts, then it is better to choose an all-metal hammer with a nail puller. Such a tool may well survive a large load, and besides this, it will not be damaged if the handle is lengthened. metal pipe to increase leverage. Typically, these hammers are used when they need to be used to drive nails. If one of them is bent, then it can be immediately removed to score the other.
Nail pullers-chisels
A highly specialized tool designed for beekeepers. It is used for processing and cleaning old frames. With its help, small carnations are removed, and the planks of the frame are cleaned from the old foundation with a chisel. Also on sale are reinforced chisels, which, in addition to performing the current two functions, also work like a hammer. This makes them versatile for repairing bee frames and more serious tasks. It is worth noting that although such a nail puller is a chisel, it is not sharp enough to carry out woodcarving, like carpentry counterparts.
Meet ticks, which themselves are used to extract nails. At the same time, on one of their handles there is a flat spatula with a slot for studs, copying the shape of a nail puller. Such a device cannot cope with large fasteners, but it is quite useful for disassembling small wooden boxes, which are usually used to transport vegetables and fruits.
Nail pullers deserve special attention mounts. This is an almost universal dismantling tool that allows you to perform a large list of works. Typically, these devices are 4 in 1. They can be used as a nail puller, pry bar, hammer and tool for bending metal rods. Often this device costs much more than all other varieties. However, it cannot compete with the power of a crowbar nail puller.
How to use a nail puller
Often, when using a nail puller, one has to deal with heavily hammered nails, the head of which is deepened into the surface. In this case, there is no way to get hooked. To solve this problem, it is necessary to keep auxiliary tools at hand. First of all, it is a hammer, or pliers.
If a structure is being dismantled, in which there is access to the reverse side, where the tip of the nail is located, then it is worth checking if it protrudes. If the pointed part sticks out, then it is necessary to hit it with a hammer, after which the hat will come out and you can pull it out. Sometimes fasteners on the reverse side are bent to increase reliability. In this case, it needs to be unbent. For this, pliers or tongs are useful. After leveling, hit the sharp side so that the hat comes out a little.
In the case of dismantling surfaces in which the tip does not protrude from the back, or there is no access to it, the work will have to be done more roughly. First you need to put the spatula of the nail puller against the hat, directing it at an angle of 30 degrees. With a hammer blow on the back of the nail puller, it must be driven into the surface until the cap is hooked. After that, the tool is used as a lever and pulls out the nail as usual. This is a fail-safe method, but spoils the boards, which is not always acceptable if you plan to use them in the future.
When the nail is driven with great force, the back of the nail puller cuts into the wood, leaving a deep dent there. The same occurs when dismantling the mount on slate roof. To avoid this effect, it is worth placing a small soft wooden plank under the stop of the tool. It will take on the deformation effect on itself, distributing the load over a larger area, so a dent will not appear.
This building tool is rather anti-building. The fact is that with the help of nail pullers they do not build, but break. It is intended primarily for disassembling fixed connections. wooden structures made with nails. At the same time, with the help of a nail puller, you can also perform other dismantling work: beating off plaster, dismantling brick walls and much more.
Nail pullers are the most different designs but they all have common feature. At least one of their ends has a flattened area in the form of a narrow blade with a widening slot. When pulling out the nails, the upper part of the protruding nail is inserted into this slot and using the nail puller as a lever, resting against the nail head, it is easy to pull it out. In hardware stores you can find a very large variety of nail pullers and we want to talk about all of them.
Types of nail pullers
crowbar nail puller
This tool is a classic nail puller tool. It is made entirely of steel. Structurally, it is a piece of steel rod, the ends of which are bent in different directions, and one or both of them are flattened and slots are made in them for pulling out nails. Along the length of the crowbar, the nail puller can be either of a small length - 40 cm, or very significant - up to 1.5 meters. Accordingly, the longer the nail puller, the thicker and stronger it is.
Previously, these tools were usually made independently from improvised materials. Usually, various shafts from mechanisms and machines were used for these purposes. If you see such a homemade nail puller - take it without hesitation. The fact is that this is a truly eternal tool due to the very high strength qualities of the material used. All the same, the shafts are made of high-strength steel. They used to make nail pullers usually familiar from factories that had access to powerful presses, or in forges that can be found in the vastness of Russia at the present time.
Those crowbars - nail pullers, which are now sold in stores, are of course worse. First of all, this is due to the fact that standard rolled metal products are used for their production. Currently, for the production of crowbars - nail pullers, reinforcement, a round bar or a hexagonal bar with a diameter of 10 mm to 25 mm are used. Despite the fact that some manufacturers still harden the ends, this tool wears out quickly and is easy to bend if you try to break a powerful building structure.
As an example, I will give my own experience - as a result of using a small modern nail puller, the slot developed to such a state that the nail heads in it simply stopped holding within two days. And this is taking into account the fact that I pulled out with it only about 1500 nails 30 mm long from a wooden floor ( old fiberboard tore off).
Nail pullers made of reinforcement are a little stronger, but they can very quickly rub calluses on your hands if you do not wrap the handle with electrical tape, for example. Round and hex rod nail pullers are approximately equal in strength. Checking the strength of a nail puller is easy enough. Take a nail approximately 120 - 150 mm long and try to scratch the working part of the tool (slotted blade) with the tip. If the scratch turned out, and even deep, do not take this nail puller. There will be little sense from him. 
Coming up with this design, manufacturers first of all took care to give the tool versatility. So two tools in one. Structurally, this is a classic hammer, usually with a rounded head, the sharp part of which is made in the form of a working part of a nail puller. On the one hand, of course, this is convenient, especially if you are sitting on the top of the roof, hammering nails and it took you to pull out one nail, which was bent from an unsuccessful blow.
At the same time, it is inconvenient to use a nail puller as a dismantling tool. It is not always possible with its help to crawl under the head of a nail, and it also has a less durable handle - made of wood, and the lever is much shorter than that of a crowbar - a nail puller.
As a material for the metal part of hammers of this type, forged tool steel is usually used, which usually exceeds the strength of the material of modern classic nail pullers. On sale you can also find a tool of this type completely made of metal with an ergonomic rubberized handle. Hammers - nail pullers are usually used in plumbing and carpentry.
As recommendations, we advise you to have three types of nail puller in your tool kit: a hammer - a nail puller, a small classic nail puller 40 - 50 cm long and a powerful crowbar - a nail puller with a length of at least 90 cm. The hammer can be used in construction work when you need to pull out one or more unsuccessfully hammered nails, using a small nail puller it is convenient to pull out upholstery studs and remove the cladding, but a large tool will be needed when dismantling powerful building structures, pulling out large nails or staples, as well as dismantling brickwork.
