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In this video I want to introduce you to some demolition tools
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So these will be the tools that you want to use when you're tearing something down
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You want to get rid of cabinets, maybe open up some walls, just as part of a renovation
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restoration project. There's a few different things. There's basically bashing tools and
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prying tools. Those are the two categories. For bashing, just regular handheld bashing
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of small things. A two pound mason's hammer like this works really well. If you're a bit stronger
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you might find a four pound works better. That's what this is. And it's just for small scale
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bashing. If you have a lot of serious bashing to do, you're going to want to get a sledgehammer
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Now this doesn't enter into the equation too much. This is a six pound. It's about as light
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as you'd want to get. You get eight, ten, twelve pounds as well. You probably won't use a sledge
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hammer like this very often when you want to do what I call careful demolition. So removing some
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things, preserving surfaces and stuff elsewhere so that it works well. But those are the bashing
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tools and that really covers the equation. You could use a claw hammer too, but they're a bit light
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You know, claw hammer for driving nails typically about a pound or a little bit more
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You're going to get more results for a given swing of your arm with something that's got more
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inertia and momentum in it. Now when it does come time to do some prying, there are some different
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tools you want to use. Now this is kind of a medium pry bar. This is for close quarters work
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This is the kind of crowbar that I recommend for bigger stuff. It's a lot better than a
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traditional crowbar. Sort of that octagonal shaft with a hook on the end and a fairly narrow blade
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Sort of like a walking stick kind of crowbar. This kind is better because it's got wider surfaces
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That's the main thing. Wider prying surfaces. So that's why something like this would work better
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than a more traditional style. Now there is one other kind of prying tool that you may not have
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heard of before and this is just super for precise work. It's called a cat's paw pry bar
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It's just a little one here. The beauty of it is that you've got a nice thin blade on one side
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I've actually ground this a little bit blunter than when it came from the factory because
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I wanted to use it for some scraping. But you can you can reduce this. You can make this extremely
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thin and the idea is that if you have say a cabinet that you want to pry off of the wall
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or pry up off of the floor, chances are that cabinet's pretty tight fitting to the wall or
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floor and if you try to bash your way into that space with something thick and coarse like this
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you're going to cause unnecessary damage. But with a very thin pry bar like this and a few
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hammer taps you can get behind trim. You can get behind cabinets and you can start to open up the
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gap. Now you're not going to do any serious demolition work with a little wee tool like this
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but you're going to start the process. You're going to get that crack wide enough that you can get a
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tool like this in and start getting some real leverage working for you. Now there's one little
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trick I want to show you. Let's say you want to pry something you know let's say this is a cabinet or
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something like that and it's it's against a surface that you want to protect. I mean you could just go
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in there and start prying like this but you'd be prying against the surface that you want to
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preserve. So a better option is to use a this is a drywall knife four inch anything really that's
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got some some sheet metal to it. You can put it underneath and now you can pry against it
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and so you're protecting your surface. You can slip one of these things in at an angle or straight
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on but it's a little little trick but it helps quite a bit when you have to do some some careful
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finesseful tearing down with minimal collateral damage. Now before I told you there was essentially
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two kinds of demolition tools. There's the bashing and smashing tools and then the prying tools
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There's actually another category that you should know about and it's the sawing tools
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and you really cannot beat a tool like this for cutting things that you want to remove. This is a
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reciprocating saw. This is a full-size cordless 18-volt reciprocating saw and its job is to
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sneak into places and to cut. So you can sneak in and you can cut fasteners so you can remove
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something without any bashing smashing or levering at all. If you've cut the fasteners the nails are
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the screws. You can cut wood. You can cut pipes. This sort of saw is meant to go through everything
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Now these saws have been around for a while. This is nothing new but what is new is the quality of
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blades that are available for them. Used to be that the blades didn't last very long at all but
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now there's two kinds of advanced blade technology that you need to know about
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This is a little single-handed 12-volt reciprocating saw but look at this
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Bi-metal. That means that this metal is a lot stronger than normal and it can cut through it
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well. Look at this nail embedded wood. Nails don't bother this at least not too much. It's primarily
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a wood blade because you can see how coarse it is but it does tolerate nails and it will tolerate a
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lot of nails too. So bi-metal one thing to look for. This other kind of blade is kind of interesting
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I've used it quite a bit as you can see and it's still pretty much as sharp as when it was new
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It actually has carbide teeth. There's carbide teeth on that. You can cut metal all day long with this
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thing and as long as you don't go too fast so you don't develop a whole lot of heat here on the
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the teeth it will stay quite sharp and it'll go through non-ferrous metal, copper
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electrical conduit. It'll also go through steel pipe, all kinds of spikes, nails and just keep on going. This blade I actually used in a test
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and I made hundreds of cuts through thick 12-inch spikes with this particular blade
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and it works really well. So there you have it. The complete demolition package ready for
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tearing down and the preliminary work of making your space better
