As a kid, one of my first jobs on the construction site was pulling nails out of scrap lumber. Soon I graduated to demolition, and my dad showed me how to use the slide hammer nail puller. With practice, a person can cleanly pull a lot of nails in a very short amount of time with one of these. The slide hammer is especially useful for persons who are doing re-models or are recycling old lumber. Over the years I broke out the slide hammer on a number of jobs only to have people ask what the heck it was. Some people will admit that they’ve seen one, but never knew what it was or how to use it. Once I was on a job where an apprentice had just nailed off some shear panels at the wrong layout. He was groaning that the boss was making him remove them with a cat’s paw. I whipped out the slide hammer, and pulled all the nails in a 4×8 sheet in less than 5 minutes and blew everyone away. The sheet was re-usable too. I’ve picked up a few of these here and there, but this one was my grandfather’s. I’m not sure how old it is, but it was made by Crescent Tool Co., and is called an “Eclipse” Patent #13. You can still find new ones at good, old fashioned hardware stores. Every re-modeler should have one.
