How To Hammer Nails

Today, we're going to learn how to hammer nails. I know various different types of nails on the market, and depending on what we're actually going to be nailing to is dependent on the nail that we're going to use, and to the hammer that we're going to use. Today, I've got various nails here that we're going to hammer into this piece of wood.

Here's a slightly bigger nail. These are smaller nails. And these are like, what they call a "lost head" nail; in other words, that they go straight into the wood and go flush with the wood.

Firstly, choose the hammer. The hammer we're going to use is this type of hammer, which has a claw on the back of it and a big face. Now, this is a fairly heavy hammer, so it's very well balanced and by "being well balanced" means that it's much easier to drive a nail into a piece of wood.

Now, these are fairly expensive - I would say about 30 to 40 pounds - but it is worth the investment, buying a hammer that is a better quality and from more of a technical DIY store than a cheaper hammer which doesn't have the correct balancing or the correct weight. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to pick up one of these nails, again holding the hammer having my thumb on the shaft pointing directly down the shaft of the hammer. See, there's the claw? Okay? A nice firm grip.

And what I'm going to do is I'm going to pick up the nail and I'm going to place the nail in the piece of wood. Now watch your fingers, yeah, because this is quite a heavy hammer and the last thing you want to do is it going down your fingers, okay? So, place the nail on the piece of wood, a couple of light taps. Remember, remember the positioning of the thumb down the shaft of the hammer.

A couple of taps, take your fingers away, last thing that you certainly want to do is to hit these fingers, okay? Keep these fingers away. Okay. A couple of taps - is the nail straight? Yes, it is.

Want to have a look - yes, it is. Okay. Again, a couple more taps - is it straight, yes it is; is it bending, no it's not.

Okay, so nice, relaxed arm and to finish straight into the wood. Okay. Again, that was a lost head, and as you can see, what happens is the nail has actually gone straight into the wood, so it's nice and smooth over the top.

What we've got here is a slightly bigger nail. Again, this hammer is the correct hammer to use because it's quite heavy. If I put the nail on the piece of wood - again, making sure the thumb is running down the shaft of the hammer - couple of taps, in position.

Keep those fingers out of the way. A couple more taps - yeah, looks nice and straight - couple more taps - again, looks nice and straight - and to finish through. Now, by having the thumb along the shaft of the hammer, it gives me control of the hammer.

Just better control means that when you hit the hammer, you're hitting it straighter, which means that the nail won't bend. Now, if I show you this. now, if I keep my hammer and I don't hold it properly, that can happen. So it's very very important, okay, that when we actually do use or hit a nail into the piece of wood, that we've got that position.

One, two, three - check to make sure it's straight - hitting it hard. So what we've got here is we've got a claw on this hammer and this is for removing nails out of the wood that we've driven in. Okay? Or nails that we put in the wrong place.

Or nails that we've hit and they aren't straight and we need to make them straight, so we take the nail out of the piece of wood and re-nail with the hammer making sure that the nail is straighter the next time around. So, here we go - mind those fingers, put the fingers back. I've put the nail in the wrong place.

So, what we're going to do is use the claw of the hammer - as you can see, it goes directly underneath the nail, okay, holding on to the piece of wood and pivoting on the head of or the top of the hammer, pulling it back and out comes the nail. Show you that again. Aga