When my colleague first bought a nail gun, I assumed that progress on the bedroom addition we were building would speed ahead dramatically. In reality, we ended up creating a situation that threatened to be more time-consuming than work without the nail gun.
The bedroom had a 14-ft. high ceiling made of wood planks. As we nailed down the planks, we missed the ceiling joists in more places than I care to remember. Result: numerous shiners (nails missing joists) scattered across what was supposed to be a finished ceiling.
Faced with the task of moving a tall stepladder around the room a few feet at a time and then hammering away at the misplaced nails in an awkward position, I looked around the site for some other tool that might get the job done more easily. As shown in the drawing, I ended up nailing a sheet-metal joist hanger to the end of a long 2×4 to create a ram that I could use while standing on the floor. I bent one of the joist hanger’s flanges onto the edge of the 2×4 to allow the tool into corners. I used the other flange to pry nails away from joists or blocking so that I could get a better shot at them. Using this ram, I knocked the shiners out with a single blow.
Lloyd Russell, San Diego, CA
