Pulling Nails From Redwood
Use pieces of scrapwood to free nails without bending the nails or splitting the wood.
I had to remove 2×6 redwood exterior trim that the homeowner wanted to repurpose. Unfortunately the 31/2-in. box nails bent every time I tried to pound them out from the back side. Years and years of paint covering the nail heads didn’t help.
With a hundred of these nails to remove, I needed a solution. I decided to drill a hole just slightly larger than the nail shank in 1-in.- and 3/4-in.-thick pieces of scrapwood. With the two holes aligned, I put the drilled scraps over the nail, leaving only about 1/4 in. of the nail sticking out.
With a hard tap on its pointed end, the nail was freed. I removed the 3/4-in. piece and struck again, further driving out the nail without bending. A third hard tap drove the nail out enough to pull it out, leaving a clean hole and mostly intact redwood.
— Scott Gillespie; Richmond, Calif. Edited by Charles Miller.
From Fine Homebuilding #298
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Great tip.
Maybe clamp a 2x2 + 1x2 both sides of the nail?
For $50-75, you can buy a pneumatic denailer, expressly designed for this task- much faster than using blocks of wood with holes drilled in them. Just search on "pneumatic denailer." I think Guertin jury-rigged an early version from an old nail gun.
cut the nail off about 1/4 inch above the surface and tap it out. Works on bent nails too