Nail assist: concept gadget to keep you from hammering your fingers
Michael Harris's concept gadget, "The Nail Assist," looks like a good idea: a proxy for the nail head that's larger and wider, giving you room to put your fingers somewhere unlikely to be smashed. Of course, it all depends on whether the device can stand up to being repeatedly smashed with a hammer.
Link (via Gizmodo)You insert the nail inside the guide tube. Position the tube where you want the nail to be. The large top makes it much easier to manage a hammer slamming down on it. It also protects your precious and very useful fingers. Once the nail is pushed in, simply repeat the process. Your nail will always go in straight and square into its intended target. Brilliant I say.
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Do people really need such a gadget? How lame do you really have to be to need a 'tool' to use a hammer and nail?
Using this would be tediously slow for a pro, but that's not who this is aimed at anyway. This is more like the OXO good grip for hammer and nails.
Tools like the nail set, which help avoid hitting the surface, take repeated poundings for years and survive. It all depends on the choice of material.
Push a nail through a small strip of corrugated cardboard for an improvised nail holder. Hammer the nail in, and rip off the cardboard just before you finish the last few taps. Helps to protect your fingers until you become more comfortable with hammering.
So brilliant someone already thought of this. They used to sell something similar at Garrett Wade, but without the plasticy parts. Honestly though, hammering a nail is such a basic skill, if you need this then you should probably just use a screw.
'Set and sink' or you're too slow with an 8d-coated like the pic shows. :) Anyone who needs this would probably bend the nail with their first hit after taking the guide off the nail. Like all things in life, practice makes perfect.
"precious and very useful fingers"
I dispute that characterization and offer Exhibit A as depicted above.
Now if they added a spring loaded feeder tube then we'd be talking.
Why spend money when you have a comb or (as the previous reader mentioned) a piece of cardboard? This is consumerism at its silliest.
Wow. How is this better than pliers for holding nails?
Pliers, comb, and cardboard don't increase the size of the striking area. And if someone needs this, they need that feature. Myself, I can't figure out how someone would still hit their fingers after driving just a few nails.
(sided my garage myself, roofed my shed myself.. and those were using 3/4" nails, very short and hard to hold on to...)
You can buy a device that does this same thing except it's the size of a fat ink pen and it's made mostly out of metal with a little bit of plastic for grabbing on to. For finishing trim, I think, or people that shouldn't be nailing stuff in the first place.
One could buy this, or one could simply learn how to properly hammer a nail. I swear, the de-evolution of man is in full swing.
I use a wad of gum. If you're not too fussy you can continue to chew the gum while waiting for your next nail.
For a Young Inventors contest several years ago, my son and his friend made a gizmo out of a round magnet with a groove in it's face, glued into a short length of pvc pipe. You put the nail in the groove and hammer away!
They got to the state tournament for Young Inventors, but no one beat a path to their door to market the thing.
I found it worked really well, and had a bonus function -- you could dip it in a pocket full of nails on your tool belt to grab a handful without stabbing yourself.
This may win the prize for the dumbest thing ever featured on BB. This is a joke, like the Japanese useless inventions contest, right?
@my comment above:
The word I couldn't remember is chindogu. A few examples of more amusingly useless inventions at:
http://www.mindbreakers.com/mb/japan-useless-inventions.htm