Pull Thin Nails Straight Through the Wood With a Rivet Gun

The Problem

Thin nails in hardwood are miserable to remove. Try to punch one through and it folds — the shank is too slender to take the blow, especially in dense stock like ash. Try to pry it out and it snaps off below the surface, leaving steel buried in a board you wanted clean. For anyone salvaging reclaimed lumber, this is the everyday failure mode.

The Technique

The tool that pulls a rivet's mandrel turns out to pull a nail the same way — with steady draw instead of shock:

1. Get the nail's tip exposed on one face of the board (where it protrudes, or nearly does).
2. Slip a washer over the tip so it sits flat against the wood. The gun will bear against this, not the board.
3. Seat the rivet gun's nosepiece over the nail tip, exactly as if the nail were a rivet mandrel, so the gun's jaws grip the shank.
4. Squeeze the handle. Each stroke draws the nail straight along its own axis — no bending, no side load — until it pulls all the way through.

The nail comes out intact, the wood shows a tiny straight hole that takes a dab of filler, and the washer keeps the gun from bruising the surface.