TIAMAT The Extractor Nail Remover

Faced with an internal flood in a Victorian home built in the late 1800's, I had my work cut out for me. To assist the general contractor, I offered to pull nails from all the old custom wood trim. How hard could it be? Ever try to pull a square nail? Then I found the Extractor online, did my research, and thought I'd give it a try. A thousand nails later and the wood is sorted, stacked, and ready for reinstall. The construction workers all wondered what I was using, tried the Extractor, and now each wants to buy one. Finish nails are a breeze, square nails take a bit of muscle, but both can be pulled by the shank through the back of the wood to avoid marring the front. Even flat head nails can be pulled through but one has to consider the age of the wood, decorator value, and whether or not tapping in out to pull from the front will mar the surface (easier) BUT it can be pulled through from the back. A great tool and one which made an overwhelming job very do-able! Thanks for a great product, Jan The Extractor Nail Remover

A must if you are trying to reclaim wood. Tool does not leave marks when used properly to remove old fasteners. To jaw is fixed. Lower jaw (with the half moon) pivots on a double pivot. Jaws are simulator to a good set of pliers. When you grab a nail, screw, staple. . . the more force you place on the lower jaw to remove. The more the tool bits the whatever you are trying to remove. Nothing slips out of the jaws. You can also re-bite a long nail as many times as you need too to get it out. A rough carpenter might not need one of these. A finish carpenter would live one of these. A real must have tool for working with reclaimed wood.

I love this. I got it to pull carpet staples out of the undersides of some open stairs - we took off the carpet to put on hardwood, and the steps looked like they grew fur because we couldn't get the staples out, and they had clumps of carpet stuck in them. One thing this does is to pull out the clumps of carpet so I can see the staple. I often can grab the staple with just this and pull it out, almost effortlessly, and I'm not strong. When the staple isn't sticking out far enough, I use a tack puller to get it far enough out, then grab it with this to go the rest of the way. I line up the long flat jaw with the staple, then close on it with the rounded jaw and rotate toward the rounded jaw. The leverage you get that way is amazing. These very long staples don't stand a chance. My husband says I have a new hobby because I can't pass the steps without pulling out a few staples. Good thing, there are lots and lots of staples to pull. It really is fun to use, and very satisfying. Excellent quality, well worth the price.

I'm resurfacing our deck and have to pull a ton of 3-4 inch nails with standard heads (about 3/8" diameter) and "The Extractor" is not the best tool for it. I figured this would be a problem so I read all the reviews and nobody really mentions that when you try to grip the head of such a nail, this tool is far more likely to bend or break an edge of the nail head than pull the nail out. Once you've mangled the nail enough it will finally pull it, but it isn't an efficient process. Things go much faster using the standard claws of a hammer. The other annoying thing with this tool is the nail has to be exposed at least a couple millimetres before this tool can grip it. That's about the same amount you need for hammer claws, although I think this tool will grip it with a little less clearance than hammer claws. I need to hammer a small sharp nail prier under the nail first to get it up those 2mm which wastes additional time. I'm keeping "The Extractor" because it can get into tight spaces where hammer claws can't, but I won't be using it for most of my deck nails. I wish I could since it's easier to keep gripping the nail lower and lower with this tool as you pull it out as opposed to using a wood block of various heights to prop up the hammer to keep the hammer claws at the proper height. I should also mention that The Extractor's claws aren't deep enough to pry nails out more than about 2" so if you can't pull a 3"+ nail out with brute strength at that point, you need to have another tool or a block ready. I later got an old-school version of Crescent 56 Nail Puller and am using it for all my nails. Not only does it not need the small sharp nail prier, but it does less damage to the wood than the small nail prier and can get into corners smaller than The Extractor, so the extractor isn't getting used for anything on this project. Like the extractor, the crescent puller can pull nails with no head (I pulled a 3+ inch headless deck nail) and the only disadvantage is the crescent can't easily grip the nail at lower points to pull it out straight, so the nail gets pulled into a curved shape the farther you pull it out. However, even using the crescent to pull 3+ inch deck nails out far enough to remove by hand doesn't usually cause the hole you're pulling from to splinter. The Extractor is probably a better choice for pulling finishing nails through from behind because the crescent is harder to get aligned precisely to pull small nails, but if your nails have significant heads or aren't sticking out at least a couple millimetres, I'd definitely go with the crescent. See my review of the crescent for more details.

We were removing carpet that had been installed over a beautiful wood floor. The carpet pad had been stapled down to the floor. About 80% of the staples could be removed easily with this tool, and removing them left only very small holes, since the staples got pulled up almost vertically. The cam action worked well. However, 20% of the staples had been driven down too far (or maybe walking on them for 20 years pushed them into the floor), and this tool couldn't get a good grip on those low lying staples. The jaws would close on the staple, then slip off. We tried prying them up a little with a screwdriver or chisel, but that approach didn't work too well. We finally got the last staples out using ordinary vise grips, which would hold onto the tops of the staples. The vise grip approach was more work, took longer, and left bigger holes. If this nail remover had better grip on those low lying staples, it would have been perfect. Since it worked well on 800 out of a thousand staples, it was still worthwhile.

Not worth the money. Looks like the ideal solution but hard to manipulate. MADE OVERSEAS!!!!