finish nail puller deluxe.

[Diggin It]

Taught Wood Shop for 25 years. I always taught to kids to pull the finish nails through to lessen damage on the good face of the board. Used vice grips, the rounded edge and put a thin scrap piece in between. Almost always worked great.

" Almost always worked great."
Cautious optimism?
or
alternate facts?

Straight fact. No twist. Almost because sometimes the nail breaks off. Then you use the grinder or file as mentioned below.

Even farther off topic.
I usually just cut the nails off on the back side with a pair of side cutters or my cordless angle grinder with a cutoff wheel on it for a whole bunch.
The little stick out (1/8” approximately) works good to “tack” the piece in place holding it while the real nails get driven.

Pulling them through seems to crack the older dry trim for me so I cut them off and leave the head buried in the wood under the original filler done long ago.

To remove the trim, I use a paint scraper/putty knife jabbed down to protect the wall as a backer and a set of thin 90degree trim bars to get started.

Yeah, I don't understand the other post about trim. A thin blade or prybar, even the type used for automotive trim gets behind the molding enough to pull it loose from the wall.

Way, way, waaaayyyy off topic. I passed through Valdez in '71 or '72 after they relocated it after the massive 'Quake of '64.

 

[mikester]

Taught Wood Shop for 25 years. I always taught to kids to pull the finish nails through to lessen damage on the good face of the board. Used vice grips, the rounded edge and put a thin scrap piece in between. Almost always worked great.

Kinda hard to do when you are air nailing trim and you manage to hit a hidden drywall screw and the finishing nail turns into a coiled up mess on the surface of the trim.

 

[MossRoad]

We had oak floors in our house. They were "sanded" to refinish them very poorly, before we bought the house. So I ripped them all up and installed a new bamboo floor.
Now to the point. There were several boards that were still in decent shape that I figured would be good for some projects. But there were several 100 nails still in the boards.
So I came up with this.
A cable tie clamp that you screw into a wall to hold phone lines, a small nut, and a rivet gun.
Worked like a charm! No tear out on either side.
View attachment 694839

View attachment 694840

View attachment 694841
Coffee table made from the flooring.
View attachment 694842

I also made a dining room butterfly table out of it.

I wish I could hit the like button multiple times on this post!

 

[Hay Dude]

Straight fact. No twist. Almost because sometimes the nail breaks off. Then you use the grinder or file as mentioned below.

Yeah, I don't understand the other post about trim. A thin blade or prybar, even the type used for automotive trim gets behind the molding enough to pull it loose from the wall.

Way, way, waaaayyyy off topic. I passed through Valdez in '71 or '72 after they relocated it after the massive 'Quake of '64.

Why wouldn’t you understand that?
If a finish carpenter is trimming a window, and the molding takes 18 finish nails to apply it to the jamb, who would want to pull the whole piece of trim off with a pry bar, just to pull out one nail through the back, when he could just pull it out from the front?

Using a pry bar to pull it off is a lot more work and risks breaking the trim.
I framed and trimmed 100s of houses and would never pull an entire piece of trim off just to pull a nail through the back-even if it only had 2 nails in it.

Back in the day, you’d be fired as a finish carpenter for removing trim, just to pull a nail from the backside. It would take an extra 1/2 hour and risk breaking the trim.

 

[PILOON]

I re ground a pair of end cutters so that they cut nails flush to the backside of the trim.
End vs side cutters as it is easy to first try pulling B4 cutting as a last resort.
A slight rocking motion of the end cutters usually gets things going but failing to do so you simply reposition and 'clip the nail flush'.

For straight pulling a good pair of vice grips works just OK on soft wood trim.

 

[EddieWalker]

Nice idea for a nail puller. I use needle nose pliers. Most of the time, I spin the nails out by gripping what's exposed and turning the pliers so the nail bends. It usually comes out right away, but sometimes I use the leverage from the length of the pliers to pull them out.

As a remodel contractor, I'm constantly removing trim from a house and its not uncommon for there to be over a dozen nails in a single piece of door trim. I haven't found anything faster or easier then needle nose pliers.

Sometimes the nail breaks off. I just bend it over and make it flush, or break it off close to the wood by twisting what's left back and forth until it breaks off.

 

[Zetorboy]

He guys! Thi site is'nt it suppose to be a ....tractor subject post site?????
Love those diverst subjects discussed.
Have a great day.
Zetor Boy

 

[PILOON]

He guys! Thi site is'nt it suppose to be a ....tractor subject post site?????
Love those diverst subjects discussed.
Have a great day.
Zetor Boy

He used his tractor to bring his tool box to the jobsite.

 

[S H Bishop of Bliss]

We had oak floors in our house. They were "sanded" to refinish them very poorly, before we bought the house. So I ripped them all up and installed a new bamboo floor.
Now to the point. There were several boards that were still in decent shape that I figured would be good for some projects. But there were several 100 nails still in the boards.
So I came up with this.
A cable tie clamp that you screw into a wall to hold phone lines, a small nut, and a rivet gun.
Worked like a charm! No tear out on either side.
View attachment 694839

View attachment 694840

View attachment 694841
Coffee table made from the flooring.
View attachment 694842

I also made a dining room butterfly table out of it.

 

[Diggin It]

Why wouldn’t you understand that?
If a finish carpenter is trimming a window, and the molding takes 18 finish nails to apply it to the jamb, who would want to pull the whole piece of trim off with a pry bar, just to pull out one nail through the back, when he could just pull it out from the front?

Why would you want to pull just one nail? Unless it bent on the way in, and then it wouldn't take much to pull it back out.

I use needle nose pliers. Most of the time, I spin the nails out by gripping what's exposed and turning the pliers so the nail bends. It usually comes out right away, but sometimes I use the leverage from the length of the pliers to pull them out.


Sometimes the nail breaks off. I just bend it over and make it flush, or break it off close to the wood by twisting what's left back and forth until it breaks off.

I've done that too. Works best with small nails or brad from a pneumatic nailer.

If it breaks off, you hope a nail set will drive it below the surface enough to fill over it.

 

[Hay Dude]

Why would you want to pull just one nail? Unless it bent on the way in, and then it wouldn't take much to pull it back out.

We must be disagreeing to agree, because this is so silly simple.
In my example, if I apply a piece of trim to a door or window, and I have a bunch of nails holding it in place, then I bend a nail, why in heck would I remove the entire piece of trim off the window, just so I can pull the nail through the BACK of the piece of trim?
Wouldnt you simply leave the mostly-nailed piece of trim where it is and just yank the bent finish nail out towards you, from the front?

 

[S H Bishop of Bliss]

I found out that the next most important thing to the having/using the right tool to pull the nail, is having a way to keep the board immobile, and up where I can work on it. I usually set up some sawhorses, but one time I inherited a trailer load of used lumber, from a person who had mental problems that he solved by driving nails into wood in as many ways as he could. So I built myself a super sawhorse out of 2x6 lumber, with additional pieces to hold it steady while I pulled, yanked, and twisted the nails. I used large F style clamps to secure the boards to the sawhorse. I built a shelve to hold my tools, and I kept a magnet-on-a-stick handy to pickup the nails and screws that got away. Some lumber I was able to salvage for my son-in-law to use for building stage flats for the local theatre he helps out, and the rest I turned into firewood. Of course having a black lab to supervise is always important, even if she sleeps most of the time.

 

[Richard]

He used his tractor to bring his tool box to the jobsite.

I thought he was going to use the thumb on his backhoe to pinch the nail and pull it.

 

[DaveinValdez]

Every 6th nail is designed to be imperfect at manufacture to bend in different directions. The tool manufactures pay for this so that "we" will have to buy more than one tool to remove them. It is simple economics.

 

[ArlyA]

Nonetheless, this nail puller works like a charm when you have finish nails in old trim or boards and you'd like to pull the nails through, not backwards like most nail pullers do. This very much lessens the damage to the wood. That's a little piece of pipe I welded onto the jaw. This one little tool with make your nail pulling day the best. (not three tools as other folks said they use)

 

[stuckmotor]

Several years ago Tractor Supply had a similar tool in the bin at the front of the store. The price was very low and I bought one thinking it might work on fencing staples. Don't think I've ever tried it.

 

[Richard]

I bought one of these once (large size) Absolutely loved it....so on a whim when I was at the store and they had a set on sale, I bought it (giving me two large, one small and one medium).

Love how this grabs onto a nut or bolt....BUT in keeping with the spirit of this thread, I've found it to be very useful in pulling out nails too. The rounded head simply lets you roll it after you grab the offender. It will pull through the wood (finish nails) or back out (finish or regular)

 

[stuckmotor]

I bought one of these once (large size) Absolutely loved it....so on a whim when I was at the store and they had a set on sale, I bought it (giving me two large, one small and one medium).

Love how this grabs onto a nut or bolt....BUT in keeping with the spirit of this thread, I've found it to be very useful in pulling out nails too. The rounded head simply lets you roll it after you grab the offender. It will pull through the wood (finish nails) or back out (finish or regular)




View attachment 695243

I saw those in the TS store and couldn't figure out what they were for. The one I got was flat black, with long handles, and doesn't lock.

 

[Richard]

Of the various vice grips I have.....these are ALWAYS now my first go-to.

 

[Richard]

Thought to add... I've used these pulling finish nails (out face and out back) regular nails (ditto), wiring staples that hold wiring to your studs, FLOOR staples back when I used "U" shaped staples for an oak floor. I've used them when I ripped up an old pine floor that had been stapled down and all the staples needed to be removed.

That rounded head really makes them handy to use when pulling something out. To protect the face of things, I'll also put a piece of wood between to help protect the finish.

I've even pulled out what turned out to be old screws (yeah it buggered up the wood but I was probably "de-nailing" it for the burn pile)