Thread: Framing with hardwood

It's possible you are not quite hitting square on either, a heavier hammer does not always mean its harder to swing, the benefit of the extra weight should mean you do not have to belt the daylights out of the nail to drive it home. To heavy a hammer on to light a nail causes the same problem. A quick wipe through greasy hair does the trick so don't over do the shampoo.

I'd check the nail thickness, and see if the local store stocks a thicker nail, although bending drills sounds a bit strange, I usually manage to break the things long before they bend.

John.

Originally Posted by TEEJAY

Just one tip - if you use oil or wax on the nails - strongly recommend you wipe the nail head before hammering if the product gets there - I have heard of a guy loosing an eye when he hit a nail with a hammer and the impact fired the product (grease I believe) out like a bullet. It would have the same effect on oil or wax.


Cheers

No offence but that is bollocks just an urban myth I believe. If someone lost an eye that way then it was a piece of hardened hammer face that split off.

Ross

Oh boy does that hurt!
We get that quite a bit at work especially new employees, except its not off the hammer face its small bits of splashed/spilt alloy(pb/Ag/Zn/Cu/As/sb/Bi)that shatter when struck with a sledgey. Its like being shot with a gun and can pierce the skin through our heavyweight overalls... Ouch!

Recently I was on a job involving us making up some very baisic trusses out of hardwood. One trick I picked up was predrilling a hole, and then actually firing a 3 inch nail into it with the gun.

As long as you line it all up the nail goes right in, and the head of the nail with a gun nail is quite large, so you can have a good wack at it if it sticks out at all.

Did a skillion at the back of a shed with the old man once using re-cycled iron bark
The old man use to stick the nails in his mouth , reckoned that was enough to lubricate them to go easy into hardwood, mind you he could carry a bag of cement under each arm and had his heart attack lifting a 44 of the back of a ute ( said it was only 3/4 full ) so he drove a hammer pretty well

But I think if you dip the shank of the nail in oil and have someone hold another hammer ( preferbly bigger ) against the wood opposite to where you are driving the nail in, (this takes the shock away) you may have some success

If your drill bent then it was a cheep chineese steel , they should snap not be soft enough to bend when drilling old hardwood

The Nail Gun option sounds like the simplest and fastest way and though I onle use a nail gun for brads the posts on framing nail guns suggest they will go into anything




The trouble with life is there's no background music.


Ashore

When I first started Eastie, there were no power tools and the studs were still morticed into the bearers and the floor went down after the roof, now that's giving my age away. Labour cost was 50% of the job on a house, things sure have changed.

Different - you could be right - my Uncle told me that one 25 years ago - he was a motor mechanic. I still err on the side of caution though . Maybe a myth and what I do could be unnecessary, back then I figured he knew what he was talking about, but these days with some understanding of physics I thought it plausible.

The one eye operation I have had has been one too many for me :eek: .

No offence taken .

Cheers

Originally Posted by seanr

Bunch of weak buggers!!!!
Good old West Aussie muscle is all you need

Hate to bring this up now, but what happened to that muscle in the Grand Final

I hate the WC wackers!!!!!
Instead of nailing why not drill and screw!!!!
I never nail anything , unless of coarse the is no way of using screws. Put up some of that straw fencing with jarrah that i found (flogged ) from the side of the road . Hard as steal , and as old as half u buggers on here . I used coach screws on all joints and had no problems . Putting the u nails in was a pain , predrilling and using long nose pliers on every nail at 11pm was a prick.