Over at the local Home Depot, their 2014 Black Friday and holiday displays just went up. I came across some Husky steel-handled 20 oz rip claw hammers, and almost passed by without picking one up. But, they caught just enough of my attention that I took a closer look.
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The hammers actually seem to be nicely constructed. There’s nothing super-fancy about them, but there were no obvious design, quality, or manufacturing flaws.
Inspecting a hammer in-store is no substitute to swing it at a pouchful of nails, but basic steel hammers are hard to get wrong.
These look to be decent basic rip claw hammers, and at $10 each they’re a good bargain.
You can buy these in-store, or online with in-store pickup.
Buy Now(via Home Depot)
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If you buy one of these Husky ripping hammers, please be sure to let us know what you think of it!
fred
I can’t debate the seemingly decent value – but were they ever really on sale for the “old higher price”of $18.97? I see lots of merchandizers do these special buys and so-called sales – and think wouldn’t it be more honest just to claim that the current price is a great value?
jason. w
“Inspecting a hammer in-store is no substitute to swing it at a pouch full of nails, but basic steel hammers are hard to get wrong”
Why would you be hitting a pouch of nails?
Stan
I was going to ask the same question, but I figured maybe I was reading this wrong or so.
Unless there is some hidden symbolism in that statement, I don’t see any merit of hitting a pouch of nails.
Stuart
What can I say, I’m a scientist, not a linguist.
I changed “pouch full” to “pouchful.” Happy? =)
Stan
Ultimately Stuart, albeit this is a rhetorical statement this is your blog. Write how chose to write, but in this instance, I figured maybe there was some deeper meaning to that statement.
Just to put this out there, my post wasn’t designed to attack you or Home Depot in anyway.
Stuart
How often do you find hidden symbolisms in my writing? =P
I try my best to ensure everything is spelled correctly, grammatically correct, technically correct, and easy to read.
I often double check word spellings and proper usage, but I’m not perfect.
But sometimes I’ll overlook little things, like “pouch full of nails” instead of “pouchful of nails.” In the first, the pouch is the subject. In the second, the nails are the subject and “pouchful” a way to say a bunch of nails.
I generally appreciate being corrected, and I replied to Jason to avoid future confusion. Otherwise, imagine you’re reading the post a month from now and you come across his comment only to not find the error he’s referencing.
jason. W
Your human. Your going to spell things wrong or use the wrong words. Heck, my grammer is horrendous most of the time. 😀
Mike
Without an anti-shock grip a 20 oz. steel handled hammer is going to hurt. It might be okay for short term uses, though.
Has Home Depot outsourced their website content to Asia?
“With best quality and exceed National Spec.”
joe
One thing that I have always wondered about hammers and never really gotten a technical answer is why is the impact side of the hammer head rounded and not flat?
I own a few hammers and mostly all of the nail head hitting hammers have the head rounded. To me it seems like the hammer would slip to the sides when it strikes the nail head as oppose to a flat surface?
Just wondering if any engineer here can chime in to answer that.
PS, I grind the head flat on my grinding wheel. Unless it’s already flat with groves build in the head I don’t.
Stuart
Seems to me that this might be done to add strength to the striking face. Might also help when a nail is struck but not from perfectly head-on. I’m not certain, and will see if I can dig up some old patents for a better answer.
MJ
As the nail head gets close to the surface, there is less of a chance of marring the surface you are nailing into with a rounded head. With a completely flat head then if you do not hit the nail at an exact 90 degrees to the head you will likely hit the surface first and put a nice gash into it.
Stuart
Great point! I think you hit the nail on the head with that answer. =)
joe
“As the nail head gets close to the surface, there is less of a chance of marring the surface you are nailing into with a rounded head. With a completely flat head then if you do not hit the nail at an exact 90 degrees to the head you will likely hit the surface first and put a nice gash into it.”
True, but on the expense of more hammer head slippage, that’s why it is not my most priority than damaging the surface when the head nail is all the way in. Maybe we need further hammer head innovating.
Round head would help to drive in nails where one would not want to leave hammer head marks on the finish product at the trade of for more hammer slippage… for things that do not matter if the end product has hammer head marks, it would be more aching to use the flat head surface.
At any rate, great answer and makes me understand hammers a little further 🙂 = round head to prevent the possibility of leaving marks – flat head to go all gorilla on the nail. Which most framing hammers do not require a rounded head. They frustrate me 🙂
Jerry
If you do drywall, you want a rounded head, to put a nice little ‘dimple’ around the nail head, to hold the mud covering the head. Often, framing hammers have a flat face, some even with a milled surface.
Mike
I bought one. I went in for hot glue sticks (not the best day to go in for one small item) and saw the display. Once I got home I added some reinforcing nails to various things to test it out. It doesn’t have the twang and snap I was expecting but I didn’t use it extensively, either. No marks on the face so it’s properly hardened, at least as far as I can tell without some prolonged use. I’m happy with it and semi-proud it was the only extra item I picked up while in the store.
James
We picked some of these up and have been using them for the last 6 weeks or so. They are used on a daily basis with no complaints. I noticed today that the price dropped to $7 so we decided to pick more up. You can’t ever have enough hammers laying around.