The Correct Way to Hammer in a Nail Safely and Securely

You would think the answer to this is to simply hit the nail as hard as you can but there is a correct way to hammer in a nail.

The correct way to hold a hammer

You should hold the hammer at the end of the handle and not near the head of the hammer. This allows you to give more power to the head of the hammer with less hand and arm movement.

Strength in the fixing

The most common mistake untrained woodworkers make when hammering in a nail is to hammer a nail in straight. This does not give a good fixing. A nail should be hammered in at an angle for strength unless the fixing is intended to be temporary.

You can try this experiment which will show you the difference between the two methods.

Take two small pieces of wood about 25mm in thickness and 30cms long. Using three 45mm nails place the two pieces of wood together and fix them to each other by hammering in the nails straight, ie. the nail is upright. After doing so, use a crowbar or similar to take the two pieces of wood apart. You will find that this is fairly easy to do.

Do the same experiment but this time hammer in the nails at a slight angle, about thirty degrees, to each other. The two end nails should create an imaginary V shape and the middle nail can be nailed at either angle to the end ones. Now try and separate the two pieces of wood and you will see how much more difficult it is.

Do not hit the nail too hard

Another common mistake is to hit the nail too hard, too early. Obviously you have to hit the nail hard enough to penetrate the materials you a nailing together but do not be too aggressive. The reason for this is two fold. In order hit the nail hard you need to take a greater swing at it and therefore you increase your chance of missing the nail or ricochetting off the head of the nail and causing damage to the material you are fixing. Secondly, a harder blow to a nail than necessary can cause an ordinary wire steel nail to bend and once bent, even if you try and straighten it, it can be difficult to successfully drive the nail home without it bending again.

The correct way to hammer in a nail

The correct way to hammer in a nail is first use small taps of the hammer to the nail head so that the nail stays in place without you having to hold it. For safety reasons you don't want your hand or fingers in the way when dealing heavier blows, as anyone who has hit their thumb with a hammer will testify. Once the nail is in place use slightly heavier blows but not full force yet to secure the nail further. You can test this if you want by seeing how hard it is to remove the nail by hand. If you cannot remove the nail easily without using the claw of the hammer then the nail is in good fixing position. Now using more blows than power nail the nail home. If you need to bury the nail and fill the hole afterwards then let the nail protrude between 2mm and 4mm then use a special tool called a nail punch to complete the job.