Hammer Testing

Re: Framers & Hammers

Bob Nelson

>When I had my roof shingles replaced a while back, I was surprised to see that all the guys on the roof were using hammers. Most other roof work by other companies in my neighborhood had been doe with power hammers. I asked the supervisor who stayed on the ground about this and he said that he'd had a couple power hammers but that they'd "walked away" and he'd decided athe heck with them. One more reason for regular hammers stil being used. Bob

Well it won an award.. *LINK*

Scott Burr in Ben Lomond CA

>for its design. Can't be all that bad. Try it out and let us know what you think.


IDSA Winner

Re: Framers & Hammers

Bill Houghton, Sebastopol, CA

>After one of the hurricanes in Florida, a research group went in and found that power-stapled and power-nailed roofs flew away at a much greater rate than hand-nailed. Several factors: (a) staples aren't very good fasteners, (b) you can nail through roof decking into free air with a power nailer and never know it, but a hand hammer will tell you right away when you miss the rafter, (c) a hand-nailed whatever can be snugged up to the framing by repeated enthusiastic wailing away, while a power nail just sets a nail (my language, this last part; well, mine all the way through, but the report stayed fairly solemn, while I can't last 50 words without going into the linguistic weeds).

Re: Framers & Hammers

Don Thompson, Cutler Ridge, South of Miami FL

>That was hurricane Andrew. Been there, done that, got the tee-shirt. The eye went over the house, but the 1957 hand-nailed roof decking stayed on.