This Clever Hammer Design Lets You Drive a Nail One-Handed

The back end of that hammer looks like it is trying to give you the digitus impudicus.

Never mind the digital impugndic, digitus impdick, finger, there's no digitus accurate way to place the nail exactly where it needs to go without holding it with the off hand.

True.

I once watched a master roofer manually nail shingles and he was almost as fast as a nail gun. It was jaw dropping.

He had a tin box slung over his neck that was shaped like a tiny upside down house. What would be the apex of the roof was a slot that ran from eve to eve. Nails were poured in on the open end and at the bottom (apex roof slot) there would be a row of nails obediently lined up with their tips pointing down ward.

He would grab a group of nails with his fingers as if making a peace sign, then closing the fingers to pull out a whole line of nails at once with his palm up and the pointed ends of the nails facing down and away.

He would then set each nail with a single tap of the hammer, withdraw his hand, followed by a final blow to drive the nail home, then repeat for the next nail.

The guy was incredibly fast with this technique. Of course one must be precise about their actions about what one is hitting with the hammer, but it becomes a self correcting problem as I discovered myself...

I tried this technique on a roof once and I can not claim the proficiency that this guy had and I lacked his little tin nail box, but it does work and probably much, much faster than manually trying to load up a hammer nail by nail.

Plus, as you pointed out, setting the nail exactly where you want it is much easier using this guy's technique.

In 1956 my dad had a hammer with grooves where one could clip a 6" nail into (facing backwards) and could drive a nail by using only one hand.

I did try it as an 11 year old while building a tree house.

Could it be placed accurately? - It did not matter to me then.

It's designed for those situations where the person has no scrap of card, paper, masking tape or initiative but they have a credit card and a mobile phone
Del

I've had a similar hammer with groove & magnet in my toolbag for several years, £5 from B&Q if I remember rightly. It was in the cheap bin because the belt clip had gone from the packaging. Used to use it for securing firework mortar racks with battening so accurate nailing was not an issue. We've now designed a clip system so no longer have any need for hammering.

Welcome to the 21st century......Hello?

If the 21st century is leaving a gap in that crown's outside corner the size of the butt crack of the latest "caption this" picture, send me back!

Are you the kind of guy that blames his lousy workmanship on his tools?

Nope. But I know how to correctly install crown and trim and that guy hasn't a prayer.

Buy a nail gun.