To: Nancy Myers

From: Robert Andrew “Andy” Schlosser

Date: October 20, 2022
Subject: APLED 121-Instructions Report

HOW TO USE A CARPENTER’S HAMMER AND NAILS

A carpenter’s hammer is a very simple tool that has a wide variety of uses, all of which have to do with
beating or pulling things in a calculated manner. It consists of a handle with a head made of a dense
material with a face and claw. Nails are long, narrow, pointed rods of metal that are used to hold things
like wood into place. If you need to put some nails in some wood for any reason, you’ve come to the
right place! Listed below are fifteen steps to hammer some nails into wood or a wall, and an additional
four to pull nails out of those things should you need to do so.

Tools and Materials Needed:

• A Carpenter’s Hammer
• A Copious Amount of Nails

Components of a Carpenter’s Hammer

Handle Claw

Head

Face

Diagram of a Nail

Head Tip
Shank
 Do not throw hammers. Property damage, serious injury, or
death can occur. Don’t let the hammer’s simplicity fool you; they are so deadly that they have been
used as weapons of war. Treat your hammer with the utmost respect and use them responsibly.

1. Determine how much of each tool you will need. It’s a sign of a bad mathematician to bring
one nail and sixteen hammers to a job site. A general rule of thumb is that one hammer per task
or person will work, no matter how many nails are required.
2. Find your hammer. This will require you to open your eyes and try to remember where you can
access one. You may need to walk to the location if you’re more than four feet away.
3. Grab your hammer. Once you’ve located your hammer, you need to remember that they are
useless when they’re on a shelf or the ground. Extend your arm so that your hand touches the
hammer, then wrap your fingers around the handle.
4. Pick up your hammer. Even if you’re holding your hammer, it won’t do anything if it’s still lying
around. You need to lift your arm (or body if the hammer was on the ground) so that the
hammer will leave its resting place. You should feel an additional weight on your arm. This is the
hammer being affected by the Earth’s gravitational pull and is perfectly normal. Virtually all
objects have weight, and hammers would be completely useless if they were the exception.
5. Pick up a nail. Because nails tend to be much smaller than hammers, you will only need to use a
finger and a thumb to pick it up and remove it from the box. In fact, it is possible to do this with
multiple nails while using the same number of fingers, but this set of instructions will assume
you are working with one at a time.
6. Determine where the nail is meant to be. This can be anywhere where the nail will do its part
of the job best. You can either find it yourself or consult the assistance of somebody who knows
what they’re doing.
7. Move the nail to the desired location. This step can be performed simultaneously with the
previous step.
8. Hold the nail into place. In order to prevent the nail from falling to the ground, you will need to
continue using your fingers to make sure the nail stays where it is supposed to.
9. Position the hammer correctly. Because you’re using a carpenter’s hammer, you need to make
sure the face will hit the nail and the claw will not, simply because claws are not made for
pushing nails into place.
10. Swing the hammer back. Not even something as powerful as a hammer can push a nail in simply
by touching it; its strength comes from the force that the wielder is able to apply. The most
effective way to apply force to the nail is to begin by swinging the hammer back before hitting
the nail.
11. Hit the nail on the head with the hammer. This step requires precision and finesse. If you
suddenly feel pain in your fingers, you hit it too hard. If you break a hole in the wall, your aim
was off. If the nail is further in the surface than it was before, you did it right.
12. Make sure the nail is in place. The nail is in place when it is deep enough into the wood that it
will not fall to the ground when the fingers are removed, but not so deep that the head is flush
with the surface.
 13. Remove fingers from nail. To minimize the risk of smashing your fingers, you will want to
remove them once it is safe to do so.
14. Continue hitting nail until it is flush with the surface. This will require you to swing the hammer
back and hit the nail repeatedly.
15. Repeat steps 5-14 until the task is finished or you are out of nails. You are finished with the
task when a hammer expert says you are finished.

REMOVING NAILS FROM A WALL

Carpenter’s hammers are especially useful when you’ve discovered that one of those nails you
hammered into the wall is in the wrong place or simply has no need to be there anymore.

1. Locate the claw on the hammer. If you need a visual reference, see the image of the hammer,
and look for the part that is labeled “claw.”
2. Place the claw parallel to the wall so that the hammer is perpendicular to the wall.
3. Position the claw so that the nail is between the prongs.
4. Roll the hammer so that the claw pushes the nail out.

Hammers are perhaps the most useful tool in the world, and no toolbox worth its salt can lack one. We
claim no responsibility if you choose to misuse your hammer because they are so basic that virtually
anybody with functioning limbs can use one. Still, using hammers is a part of the universal human
experience and we recommend that all people with the capacity to do so try to use a hammer at least
once in their lives.