Removing brads

[poolhound]

Has anybody found a way of removing brad nails from wood. I bought a large oak entertainment center at a yard sale to use to make some shop cabinets. $10 for at least a sheet and a half worth of good oak ply, plus some solid oak (doors/trim) and a set of casters.

It came apart easily and there was a lot of thick solid oak trim held on with 18g brads. If I try and knock them back out they just bend and if I try pulling them through they break. I dont want to leave the brads there as they will just ruin my jointer/planer knives when I come to redimension.

I guess I could try and drill them out and then fill the holes.

Any other smart ideas?

[Turaj]

Jon,

Try to push them through using another nail (perhaps a size larger and longer). I have done this with decent results (not always successful!), and of course you still have to fill the holes but it would be much smaller holes.

Also, I do have a metal detector that I use with suspect wood.

[cwsmith]

Driving them out might work well if you take a regular finish nail and blunt the end, using it like a nail set.

I've had fairly good luck pulling brads on softer woods using needle-nosed pliers, grabbing the end and using the pliers' nose to sort of roll them out. On a hardwood like oak, that may not be so easy, as you have already experienced.

CWS

[Sawatzky]

vise grips can do wonders for brads in hardwood!

[leehljp]

I recently removed carpeting from the LR, DR and hall. LOTs of brads and staples under the carpet that had been down for nearly 40 years over red oak. Used vise grips, needle nose, curved needle nose and sharp end wire cutters. The wire cutters won hands down for me.

I have some flush shear wire cutters (from Japan) like these

but these will do also:
http://www.amazon.com/Stanley-84-105...s=wire+cutters

Between my sister in law, daughter, wife and myself, we all tried everything. We all liked the wire cutters best for gripping and pulling. Quite a few broke off at the surface level. The wire cutters were the best at gripping smaller nubs and held on well for pulling them out. The flush wire cutters were best at getting nubs than anything, and did less damage on the wood

[capncarl]

This gizmo, a horseshoe nail pulled was designed for just this purpose and works extremely well. I've seen them at some some hardware stores and every Tractor Supply. The newest one I bought had too sharp cutter so after clipping off the head I dulled the cutter on the belt sander. It has rounded edges that roll the nails out.
capncarl

[Black walnut]

A pin punch slightly smaller than the brad head and then push them through.

[mpc]

Instead of trying to hammer nails backwards, I typically use vise-grips or other beefy pliers to grab the nail about 1/8th inch away from the board, then push the nail backwards. I generally have good luck this way. Just getting the head to push back 1/8th inch is usually enough to then grab the nail head with pliers, wire cutters, etc and pull it the rest of the way out. Or cut the now-exposed head off and the rest of the nail should pull from the bottom of the board more easily/cleanly.

I typically place the workpiece across a vise so the wood is supported close to the nail head. Then, with the vise-grip/pliers gripping the nail perpendicular to the nail, I can use small hammer on the pliers to create the force - easier than arm-wrestling dozens of nails. Rotating the nail a bit helps break it free from the wood too.

mpc

[capncarl]

For the stubborn nail or brad that just won't come out or the pliers slip off i have several sizes of this type Vice grip. It has a nice flat fluted grip surface that you can clamp down hard on the stubborn nail. Yea, I'm all about using the right tool for the job and this was designed for really gripping a nut or bolt head but it has the round edges that jack the nail right out of the wood. I have a 1/8" piece of ss about the size of a coaster that I lay on the wood to keep from making it up. Using old barn wood for my projects requires the use of a lots of different nail pulling tools. When I am finished pulling nails i set the board on 2 5gallon plastic buckets and sweep it with my metal detector, then pull the rest of the nails I missed.
I found a really nice large pine board 30" wide X 1 1/2" thick x 8' long that had a piece of linoleum glued on one side. The board was beautiful so I bought it for $50. It was so heavy I could hardly pick it up. When I peeled off the linoleum I found thousands of nails, brads, screws and tacks driven in the board in all kinds of pretty designs, names etc. Obviously someone's kid spent hours pounding on this old work bench top and they just covered it up with a scrap piece of flooring. I finally gave up trying to pull all the nails out and used it for a garden bench top.

[LCHIEN]

Driving them out might work well if you take a regular finish nail and blunt the end, using it like a nail set.

I've had fairly good luck pulling brads on softer woods using needle-nosed pliers, grabbing the end and using the pliers' nose to sort of roll them out. On a hardwood like oak, that may not be so easy, as you have already experienced.

CWS

Yeah this is what I do, too, in pine or softwood. You can usually pop the top piece off the bottom, then you end up with exposed nail What do you call the end opposite the head, the pointy end?) anyway grab it with vice grips and or needle nose pliers andI usually use the needle nose to roll up the brad against the wood and the head just pulls thru. The vice grips or larger pliers rest eh nose of the pliers against the wood and lay the pliers over so the nose rolls against eh wood and the head will just pull thru. Vert easy, just use a smooth, continuous motion with the pliers agaisnt the wood.

Use the wood as a fulcrum to pull steadily and smoothly.

If you can't pull the head thru, then do as someone else suggested, use a vise grip in the pointy end about 1/4" from the wood, push very straight in to make the head ome out about 1/4" inch then reverse the vise grip and pull the head out.

[poolhound]

Well I tried punching them back through with a nail punch and it was a no go. the wood is pretty dense red oak, the holes had been filled and then there is a pretty good finish over the top. I am guessing the item must be at least 20 years old so these brads have been in there a long while.

Any attempt to just pull them through breaks the brad. Haven't tried pushing them back with the vise grips yet but thats will be my next attempt. Drilling them out might be the only option.

[JSUPreston]

I've though about getting something like this gizmo:
http://www.lasvegastool.com/easy-puller

There are also several folks that make slide hammer attachments for vise grips.

[poolhound]

I've though about getting something like this gizmo:
http://www.lasvegastool.com/easy-puller

There are also several folks that make slide hammer attachments for vise grips.

Interesting thought I am having problems even getting access to the head of the brad, I wonder if this technique would pull them through or I guess work as a push rather than pull force.

[capncarl]

In my experience a stubborn Brad or one that had been in the wood for a long time is there to stay and usually they break off. The vice grip I have the most success with is this one, the one I forgot to post the photo of.
Nails that are broken off, rusted off or sunk below the surface can be drilled out with a hollow drill. I've never seen them for sale, maybe on the Internet. I made mine out of a piece of 1/8 steel water pipe, cut off the threads and cut in some teeth like hole saw. It's not hard metal so it doesn't stay sharp long, but a 3' stick off 1/8" pipe will make more drills than you want to use. It's kinda hard to get started so I clamp on a board with a "V" notch cut in to use as a drill guide. It produces something close to a 1/2" hole.
capncarl

[d_meister]

Rockler has the hollow reverse drills for removing broken screws,
http://www.rockler.com/screw-extractor
I have a set that I've used for years, and they hold up well. I've used mine on fiberglass more than wood. As CapnCarl mentioned, they don't start easily.The trick to using them is to make a guide block on a drill press with the matching size holes. Unless your drill press turns in reverse, you'll need to use another type of bit. I use a piece of 1/2" baltic ply for the guide. If it's too thick, it's hard to see if the hole is centered on the broken screw. Hold the guide in place with clamps, double stick, hot glue, etc, and run the hollow drill down the hole. One feature of the store boughts is that standard wood plugs or dowel fit in the holes cleanly.