If you’ve never had anyone teach you the basics of hammering, you probably have had a lot of trouble with even the simplest nailing jobs. Hitting your thumb, scarring the wall, bending nails… are all symptoms of poor hammering technique. For those of you who may have missed it, here’s a short version of the hammering technique (as taught to me by Dad, of course). Bear with me for this short course and I’ll try to make it worth the extra reading.
The Hammering Technique: A few rules of hammering will make all the difference to you and your finished work if you will abide by them. They are as follows:
1) Let the hammer do the work. Too many people try to attack nails as if they have some sort of animosity toward the nail. They draw back and swing the hammer with every ounce of strength until either the nail is pulverized or there is a large, round, hammer-shaped hole in the surface next to the nail. That is the wrong way to do it. The correct way is to hold the hammer as an extension of your arm, lift it up with the whole arm, with the elbow bent, pivoting at the shoulder. Then when the appropriate height is reached, change direction and bring the hammer down by guiding it to the head of the nail, letting the weight of the hammer do most of the work.
When this technique is learned, you can start to add a little force to the downward motion and increase your effectiveness. But remember, “slamming” down the hammer will bend nails and make your arm extremely tired.
2) Get a hammer that fits your hand. If you plan to do major projects like building a deck or making furniture, getting a hammer that fits your hand is as necessary to a handyman as having a correct tennis racket is to a tennis pro. A hammer with too small a handle will make your hand wrap too far around the handle and cause fatigue. Having a handle that’s too large will do the opposite, make it impossible to reach around it properly and difficult to hold.
3) Get a hammer that is the right weight for the job. To hammer in a small nail for hanging pictures, you’ll need no more than a small hammer, even if it has a small handle. The force required is small and you’ll not be doing very much hammering at one time, so the fit is not as important. However, if you’ll be nailing four-inch galvanized deck nails, a little “puttering around” hammer will not work. You’ll need a 16-ounce or better hammer that will provide the proper force for the job. My father-in-law recently spent nearly $30 for a hammer because he wanted the right one for the job.
4) When the job demands it, get a bigger hammer. As I said, I thought this was only a joke, but as it turns out, bigger jobs need bigger hammers. That’s not all, different jobs require different hammers. Take a look next time you’re at Sears or Home Depot or your favorite hardware store. There are hundreds of different shapes and styles of hammers! There really does appear to be one for every job!
When you nail two 2×4’s together, you can use a “regular” hammer. But if you’re working with large machinery and need to break the bond of two rusted-together parts, you’ll need a small sledgehammer. The reason stems back to number 1 and 3 above: The weight of the hammer, and letting the hammer do the work for you. The force that the heavier hammer has will do the work without tiring you out.
No extra charge for this little course. I think you find it’s probably worth the price of the book even if you don’t learn anything else. It has been worth a lot to me.
