The Latthammer's Brilliant Nail-Starting Design

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  Lignarium Lignarium

  5 years ago

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  Douglas  hammers are not available and look like will be forever. Their website removed pretty much everything. They do not reply to any emails and also messages on their Facebook page. They probably produced one of the best hammers ever but their customer service sucks. Quite typical with American retail shops. I visited the Vaughan stand in Germany and they offer the Dalluge hammer in the Titanium version. Pretty much a copy of the Douglas but way more expensive. 

   

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  George

  8 years ago

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  As a former house framer, nothing can compare to the Douglas design: It has a long wood handle which really does reduce vibration, and save your elbows. The handle attaches to the incredibly clever head design using bolts. The Head design is such that it creates a bash plate below the hammer face - the the spot where most wooden handles get damaged and eventually break. The tines on the claw are almost straight, and they are semi sharpened so they can be used as a rough chisel (very useful), and it offers a side nail puller for better leverage on those rare nails that just don't want to be pulled out. It also has a magnetic nail-set (which is a mandatory feature on all high end hammers and not even close to unique). It is such a great hammer one guy even got a tattoo of it! - Just look up "Douglas Hammer" on Youtube. Finally, while it has a cult following, it has never been widely available through a major retailer. It is the passion project of one guy who patented his idea, had it produced, and still sells it through his website.
  
  Rain - There are other and often better products out there than what you saw at that one industry trade show you went to. If you are going to give one company free advertising, you should at least give us readers a fair overview of other products in the genre.

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  Toby

  8 years ago

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  There are quite a few framing hammers with grooved heads for starting nails (fancy ones from Douglas, also from Vaughan, etc.) The built-in nailset on the nailpuller is a nice feature on this Picard.

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  Ebohcs

  8 years ago

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  That one handed nail stating head this article is so enamored with has been pretty standard on framing hammers for over 20 years, handy, yes. But not really a new innovation.

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  Patricio Ortiz

  8 years ago

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  Hi:
  
  Didn´t Douglas Tool in the U.S. release long time ago, a hammer with the same nail positioning solution ?
  I swear I´ve seen an article about the Douglas hammer in core77 or in I.D. magazine in the mid 2000´s
  
  Slaudos
  
  Patricio

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  Tom Mc

  8 years ago

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  I purchased a Stanley FatMax framing hammer back in 2009 with this same feature (the magnet). I thought it was useless when I bought it but actually used it a bunch of times already. It's also handy when driving nails through the end of a plate and into a stud while the wall is being built on the ground. It allows the user to swing down into the work without having to use your second hand to hold the nail.
  

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  Andrew

  8 years ago

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  It is a brilliant design, and most of the major manufacturers offer a magnetic nail starter hammer.

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  SFPaul

  8 years ago

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  As an old carpenter, the one handed overhead nail start can be done with any carpenters hammer. Hold the head of the hammer flat in the palm of the hand with the head of the nail against the hammer head. The fingers curl around and can grip both. Strike the wood, the nail is in far enough to hold on its own.
  It's brilliant.

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  Redstone

  8 years ago

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  Whats new about this? This type of hammer head is old as the hills. Maybe the its square?

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