I've been doing some remodeling that involves removing trim and baseboard. After wearing my wrist out removing nails I knew there had to be a better way... after some though I reached for my pop riveter and eureka... it pulled out 18 ga. brads like a champ. The orientation is important with the long axis of the brad in line with the handle of the riveter. It also worked on 4d finish nails and am going to try it on other sizes.
Ideally you should pull them out through the back. Chances are they were filled on the face side. Trying to remove them by driving them back through the face will split and leave a least desireable face when you reinstall it. I just use a pair of plyers or vice grips. Always good to have a piece of scrap wood to use as a heel to rotate the plyers on.
Posts: 686 | Location: Applachain | Registered: Feb 13, 2007
Never thought of using a Pop Rivet gun! However I don't think it would handle more than one size nail.
As noted above you should remove from the back side to keep from splitting the face of the trim. I always used nippers since the rounded face acted as a lever and generally did not need a block as a heel. It could be a bit tiring if removing a whole house of trim, but I seldom did that. the advantage of using nippers is that you didn't need to be concerned about the size of the nail.
But thanks for the tip.
Posts: 12118 | Location: Eagle, CO USA | Registered: Sep 18, 2002
