One feature you missed: on the axe side, it isn't shaped quite like a normal hatchet or shinglers axe. The dip that quickly narrows the blade to the handle is for holding large sheets of drywall in transit. Just pick up one side of the drywall and hook the head underneath and you've got a much more ergonomic way of moving sheets
I'm asking because I honestly have no idea what it is, maybe you know? Sorry for a wall of text. It's about 3 inches long on the hatchet end and you can tell it was hand forged. It has that dip near the handle. The hammer side also has a taper that looks like it could be used to carry sheets. Is it a dry wall hammer or something else? I found just the head of it in my grandpa's shed while we were cleaning up everything after my grandma passed. It was in the corner where he used to hang his tools. It was covered in a nice layer of rust and dirt. I cleaned it up with a wire brush to keep the antique aged look, re-handled it with mahogany, and made a stitched and brass rivet reinforced leather sheath to cover the axe face. I also brought the cutting edge to shaving sharp, it was the only metal removal I did to it. Now it lives on my wall.
I was a drywaller for 35 years and never carried drywall with my hatchet. Also I never saw anyone carry drywall with a hatchet. I'm not saying it didn't happen but I am saying it wasn't common practice at least not here on the east Coast
I started as a union apprentice at Lathers local 42 back the 70's. The lathing axe was used to score and snap wood lath, but that was actually before my time. In the trade, there were two sub categories, nail on and steel stud. Nail on was waterproofing (tar paper) and wiring (chicken wire) held on with furring nails on wood studs, installed by carpenters. The axe end of the hammer was used to bend the wire around for inside corners. Metal lathing or steel stud, lathers erected their own walls with steel stud, installed drop ceilings with steel channel, then covered them with expanded metal lath for plastering, again using the axe end to help form corners. This was done in most commercial buildings including many of the old high rise structures. After wood lath, they developed plasterboard or button board, which you saw being installed in the video. They made a specialty lathing axe with a replaceable blade for cutting the board. That was a hard trade, they expected so many 5 sheet bundles a day, cut, hung, and nailed off in a day. And then there was drywall.......
@@stevehamman4465 It's a little hard to remember as I have been out of the lath & plaster trade for almost 30 years (currently tile setting) but it was about 300 yards outside and about 1K ft. plasterboard inside. Of course this varied dependent on whether the job was cutup or just flat open walls.
@@Oneshot8242 This was back in the 70's & 80's. Pay was around $28.00 an hour but $4.00 PH went into the benefits package (matched by the contractor) and $1.00 PH went into your vacation fund. Great money in those days. The pressure was there but we didn't notice it. Half the shop were baseball players and the other half were dirt bikers so there was always rivalry to out perform the other workers, so meeting or exceeding what was expected wasn't really a factor. (Dirt bikers FTW!)
Its kinda sad its a trade that isn’t really utilized like it used to be. Theres a plasterer youtuber and watching him makes me miss how we used to do tiling too. Here and there I get to “float” a wall or floor in a shower. And it’s probably my favorite part of my job. But its very rarely. Im actually part of the same union as the plasterers. Idk how much work they get though. I think a majority of their trade now is using forms.
@@Titantitan001 I enjoy fixing the walls, typically termites will feast on one of the lath pieces they find delicious. I rip out the old plaster as far as required, spray the area with termite foam or boracare, then cut new pieces of pressure treated lath, glue and nail them in, then I use Durham's rock hard for my new keys, then I put a plaster mix coat over that, the repaired wall is very strong. No way I'm sticking a crappy piece of drywall in there, I want the original plaster wall restored.
@@nmatthew7469 good on ya my friend! Ive never used drywall either when i was in property management. Thats how I found Kirks youtube channel was trying to learn how to repair plaster. The building I am in now is an old bottling plant that we restored the offices into a living space and downstairs is the jam room/bar/pool. So I’ve had to learn a lot of the old school ways of doing things. Been wanting to do a mud floor with 1x1s in the main part downstairs hehe.
Hey man I just wanted to say that your videos have helped me immensely. And now I do lots of carpentry and drywall for work. But I still watch your videos because of your calm demeanor and relaxing nature. Keep up the great content!
As an old drywaller back in the late 70's till about 2000 in Southern California we referred to it as an "axe". My personal brand fav was the Plumb and resembled the lathers hatchet. As for the uses, in those days, well, when I first started in the housing industry it was all nail on, commercial was a mixture of wood and metal and so was the method of attachment. The blade of the axe was used as you showed to pry on occasion but more often, to "clean" the edge of the cut drywall by pushing the top of the axe to knock off the roughness of the cut edge. Also, when hand cutting electrical boxes, you would mark the edges of the box by sighting down from the top and measuring the top of the box and adding the length of it sliding your tape measure and knife, then competing the cuts with your knife. It was always a source of pride to be able to make your hand cuts "clean" so the taper had little or no "detail " work to do with your hand cut boxes. It was a different time for sure but a few of those things still apply.
@@vancouvercarpenter After re-reading what I wrote I should have been a little more clear that we used the blade to score a mark for the sides of the electrical boxes on the lower sheets of drywall and measured to the top of the box only, and just add however much the dimension of what you we cutting, boxes were ( are?) 3-7/8" to allow for a little play. I was at my son's cabin and had to hand cut everything....still got it!
Nice axe work! Lol one of my first commercial steel stud/drywall jobs was a hospital. The boss wouldn't let us use routers and taught us that very technique for cutting boxes. We did get very fast at it by the end of the job and if routers weren't a thing that's how I would still be cutting my boxes. Been at it almost 30 years now.
@@whitesturgeon I first saw someone use a router doing custom homes in about 77-78 maybe, some guys from Texas as I recall. It obviously was a game changer to say the least! It was just a trim router with small drill bit. They broke bits constantly as they weren't designed for the side load. I haven't thought about that stuff in years! Any hanger worth his salt knows how to cut his boxes by hand. Tough way to make a living, we were all piece workers so time was money!
I came up the same way with my dad and uncles, no router no screw gun, if we had a cord it was for the radio and don’t touch the old man’s radio it only played two kinds of music, country and western lol, just a bench, bucket for your tools and a square that’s all you had or needed, I was making money before most guys could find a plug to plug all there crap in lol those were the days most hangers made more money before lunch than most trades would make all day
Speaking of smaller nails for lath, when I was about 4 years old I got a bag of blue lath nails (they were actually blue), a hammer and a block of wood from my dad so I could “work” with him on jobs.
Long time, no comment. Sorry. I'm a tinsmith, but when I was 18, I was a carpenter's helper for a year. We had no screw gun back in '79. It was all nails. I hadn't perfected the art of "spinning nails". Every so often a nail would come up to my fingers facing the wrong way. I would drop it on the floor. My buddy informed me I needed to keep those nails, they were for the other side of the room.
Cool video, don't hang a ton of board anymore but I was taught to tack with nails (walls only) and screw off later. I still use that method sometimes and haven't had any problems. As far as hatchets go I like Walboard the best as they seemed to make the nicest dimples.
You can also use a drywall hatchet for rasping board, pulling stand ups when boarding solo, bending back track after all other trades trample over them, wedging board into tight steel door frames, lifting board off ground for dunnage
My dad was a carpenter, he had all kinds of hammers including one of these. In truth I am pretty sure I only saw him use two. The big one for framing and slightly smaller one for trim. He was that 2 hit guy and it didnt matter if it was the smallest trim nail or huge spike. Two hits. He seemed to like to let drywallers do their thing and cabinet makers do there thing. I saw do both in my home growing up but typically he respected specialized workers. But I digress this was about other “hatchet hammer” he had.
Years of gaining the confidence to hit very hard instead of holding back for accuracy. Took me probably 15 years to get to that point lol. Watching the other guys do it made me want it so bad! Even cooler when you got the magnet. Obviously there are some nails where its just not happening. But many of them stand no chance against a hammer
As a plasterer I’m impressed that you know it’s a lathers hammer. Small point of order: it’s pronounced with a flat “a” like tap. The hard “a” is used in the word lathe like in spinning wood on a machine. Also if it has a cleated face it’s really a roofers hammer. The cleat chews up the face paper causing issues with blisters and flags so they used smooth faced on Rock Lath (a brand name of early gyp board). In the wood lath days (not lathe) the lathers would use the hatchet to cleanly chop the wood to length in a split second. Also lathers were the original drop ceiling/coffer installers. I pay homage to those forgotten craftsmen of the past like Marvin Reiney the last Master Lather of St. Louis who passed away just a few years ago. He was buried with his end nippers in his right hand and a small “hank” of tie wire in the left. He invented the machine to bend channel iron into curved shapes used in more modernist building designs.
I've heard before that wood lath was installed soaking wet, out of a 55 gallon drum. I imagine it must have been pretty heavy. I do know wood lath should be soaking wet when the first coat (brown coat) of plaster is applied, so it kind of makes sense. Anyway, the lath was a lot easier to chop off when it's fully soaked. Also, I've seen from tons of demolition that they tend to chop it on an angle, for more of a slicing action.
Back in the day when people first started using screws to hang drywall most finishers were afraid of them. After trying them we would only use them for the ceiling for a couple of years. Then of course it transformed into a complete use. Adapters were made for drills so you wouldn't sink them to far. It was a lot better. You know how some people are set in there ways though. We could nail it up 2 times faster than screwing it off. When I say back in the day I was making $3 a hr and thought I was in high cotton
My brother was a roofer (back when he still had cartilage in his joints!) and he once had a shingling race, him with a hammer versus his "I know how to do everything better than you low-lifes" foreman with a nail gun. He won, and the foreman didn't show up with the crews for a week he was so ticked off.
@@MonkeyJedi99 the difference being, of course, that any schmo off the street would be almost as fast with the nail gun as your brother was after years of practice.
I hung rock for a short period of time in the mid 70s with a lead guy. We nailed everything, much faster than screwing. I hated it when we had to screw it. Hung it with nails on the edges then screwed it off. We got paid a buck for each 12' sheet. We averaged 200 sheets a day. We hung the lid together then split up, one of upstairs the other down. Lifting a full 12' sheet up against the lid by myself took a bit of practice to get good at doing it. We did one model of tract homes where the boss would order 16 footers to do the lid in the living room to eliminate butt joints. Hanging those was a bitch, broke a couple. We pushed the lid up with our left arms standing on short homemade stools. A sheet rock shortage gave me a good excuse to give up that line of work. The best compliment we got was when a finisher said he would follow those guys anywhere. We took pride in our work.
My house was entirely lath and plaster. I've had to replace some of it with drywall because eventually they start to pop off the wall but I always find it remarkable that they built a house like that. That had to be thousands of tiny nails to hold up all those strips of wood. And then it still had to be covered with plaster which was a trick in and of itself. I've seen some areas of plaster that were almost half inch think and other areas where it was only about an eighth of an inch thick.
A trick we learned when replacing plaster with drywall was to save enough lathe to clad the studs so you can use a thinner drywall and still re-use all of the old (sometimes un-matchable) finish trim. Typically, it was 3/8th to 1/2-inch drywall, depending on who did the plastering way back when.
The history goes back a lot further than that. The "s-wing" or goose-wing, version is related to the carpenters hatchet, carpenters axe, or hewing axe that was a popular tool from pre-industrial Europe. It was so ubiquitous that the Franks, Vikings, and later medieval knights used them as battle axes and throwing weapons, since replacing them when lost or damaged was relatively easy. They were actually the symbol of the Franks in their early days.
I am renovating an old house lath and plaster throughout. While making changes to wall positions I removed a lot of the old work. I reflect on how many thousands of nails and lath strips it took to just make a base for the plaster, these labourers have my respect. The finished plaster surfaces, over a hundred years old, are in much of my project still intact and literally smooth as a you-know-what. senior from Ontario.
Oh Vancouver Sheetrock guy, in the 70's we called those weapons lath ax, and instead of using a shim or speed square for measuring space between lath, we would stick the ax between lath up to the notch, that made a good space to key...
I'm a steel stud carpenter, the hatchets are really good for shimming your sheet off the ground, and for busting out spreaders in metal doorframes without carrying cold chisel around.
Yeah most honest statement... " I don't know" Metal stud guys use lathing hammers , dry wall hammers and shingle hatchets for several reasons... The blade is a good wedge, you can pop screws loose with it, the edge is used to check screw depth and for demo purposes. The reason for the angled head is knuckle clearance while nailing the lower nails. The exaggerated dish on the face is actually done to keep the edges of the nail from deforming as much as possible to prevent them from cutting the paper. The head of the nail is dished to hold the mud
Yes! Finally a video about boarding! Here's my two cents...that square headed hammer is a roofing hammer and that Estwing with the round head is an actual drywall hammer. The square hammer is much heavier, for driving roofing nails in a single swing. The Estwing is lighter for more finesse driving drywall nails. The 'hatchet' back is useful for prying lumber or drywall into position in tight spots. I haven't used drywall nails in about a decade and I don't carry a drywall hammer on my belt, but I keep one around in the tool box, just because. All that being said, I dunno squat about the history of drywall hammers or the lathe and plaster you spoke of...except for demolishing old lathe to be replaced with drywall...to which I would say, get a framing hammer or a Stanley 'Fubar'.
I believe you are right about the hatchets. I have a red handle, square face hatchet that I used almost 50 years ago as a carpenter when we put on asphalt shingles. I had just bought that tool and the edges were very sharp. Guess what? I sliced my finger wide open the first day I used it. I probably hit it half a dozen times before it healed up. Our crew didn't have roof guns at that time.
I still have my first Vaugh lathing hatchet . Bought it over 40 yrs ago. Nails were still dominant and cheaper. Didn't get a corded drywall gun till 90. I still have that too.
Sadly, I watched your video about 40 years too late. I was a drywaller back in the 80s for about five years. In that entire time I don’t think I ever heard anybody explain what the axe portion of the hammer was for. I absolutely love your videos. They’re all informative and you are so skilled at your job that, even without the interesting information, it’s a joy just watching you work. When someone is as skilled as you at their job, and they obviously enjoy their work, it’s a pleasure just to watch them do their craft.
I love how your vids are real and practical. You do what we all do when a nail head breaks off and pound her home, most would reshoot the video until it went as planned.
On metal studs I primarily use my hatchet as a prybar of sorts to shimmy my board over to close up my flat joints when standing up board. It can also be used in conjunction with pliers or some other object as a fulcrum to create a half-ass floorjack.
One more reason why I used a drywall hammer is the angle of the handle to the head and the flatness on top to nail close to the ceiling into the top plate. My hammer is lighter than a framing hammer. Old school ,we would always tack our boards up with nails and screw them off later. Easier than holding a drill with a cord attached. Also the hatchet end was used for insulation.
I live in the UK and Plasterboard/ dry wall fixers seldom carry these lath hammers now . But roof tilers do . The hammer side is used for nailing tiles to roof battens and the axe is handy for tapping tiles down length ways to cut in half and cutting corners if fitting round chimney stacks etc. Complex cuts are done with disc cutters. I know because I worked in that trade for many years.
Havent hung any drywall at all in my life, but I can attest to the fact that this tool is fantastic for various forms of woodworking and bushcraft. It works for splitting shingle style slats for kindling & building purpouses ( if you baton it like a froe), can be used as a lightweight hatchet to sned small limbs off trees, can be used as a chisel style tool and much more. A few points of advice I offer to people looking to invest in this tool are as follows: • MAKE A PROPPER SCABBARD FOR IT if you pick one up for yourself. Trust me. Safty first. • Buy the one with the wooden handle and not the full metal tang from Eastwing. You can always replace a handle, and it's a lot cheaper then you replacing the whole tool if the handle breaks. • Tune and polish the factory edge bevels to suit the function you need. • Take a rasp, sandpaper and oil/ spray on rubber grip coating to the handle to adjust it to your hand to mitigate hand fatigue. I did this to mine and it helped out emmensely. • Ponder if a lanyard ( wrist strap) is a viable ( optional) safety measure you want to install onto your tool. If yes, then add it in. If not, consider it like a tassle and deem it " a hassle". Hope these recommendations help.
Always carry a 5 in one for levering and stuff like you mentioned. But I bought a Milwaukee “drywall hammer” is how it’s labeled in store. The main justification of buying it was for drywall demo. Typically use some type of saw for clean fast cuts, but, sometimes use a hammer to start Incase wires n pipes. The axe head make much less of a mess and cleaner breakup which I just like. It’s also handy for hacking through chicken wire for stucco demo and yes, lath and plaster. Love your Chanel!
I inherited my Dad's Estwing hatchet last year. At the time I really wasn't certain what it was or what is was used for. Thanks to you Ben...now I do! Great short. Stay well. (Note to the haters: Yes, I could have Googled it, but it wasn't important at the time to do so!)
I used my grandpas old ones as camping hatches for going on 20 years now, and they're the absolute best. You can split branches for firewood, drive stakes for tents or tie down ropes, and even pull the metal or plastic ones back up with the nail puller usually. We never used them for drywall though, it's always been screws. We didn't even know they were for drywall until a few years back. Always thought they were old roofing hammers
That big Vaughn was my first drywall axe I purchased myself. I just thought it looked so cool lol. The problem was that it didn't make pretty round little dimples like the round heads do. I destroyed a lot of board back then. The Estwing's are pretty standard now because we mostly use them not to pound nails but to pry with as it's hard to break the steel handle (though we break off the nail pullers regularly).
The greatest use I had for the axe side was marking rafters and trusses before we hung lids . We also used them to mark lightboxes hanging side walls .
That's right we used the hatchet to mark electrical boxes too I almost forgot. My first training boss said it was a "bad habit" though and said to always use a pencil. Lol
Very cool that you took the time to look into this. I’ve demo’d miles of the old lath and plaster , wondering if , one day , the skilz would be in demand again(?). Plaster had(has) such a nice look. I’ve skim-coated plenty of drywall for clients that wanted a plaster-look with fairly good results. Love your channel.
There's work restoring historic buildings. Probably that work will remain steady for years to come because the only buildings where you'd bother to do L&P are protected. I imagine those guys also get work coating blueboard in high-end construction.
There is such a thing as Thin-Coat Plaster. It uses a special drywall board where the paper is more rough/porous so that the plaster will properly bond to it, and the plaster is put on at about a 1/8" thickness. It gives you most of the benefits of traditional plaster including the hardness and smoothness but installs much faster.
@@markadkins9290 Yeah I knew that but I was trying to dumb it down 🙂 Lots of people get blue board mixed up with green board for bathrooms (especially the purple variant) which are on the opposite end of the spectrum for porousness.
From my days working on old brownstones I've wondered if there was someone on full-time tool-sharpening duty. An apprentice or daughter or maiden aunt, just doing nothing but sharpening hatchets and saws and chisels. Just a thought. Neat video. Thanks.
When my dad first taught me to hang drywall at our house he made me use nails. He was an engineer, not a drywaller. As a teenager I roofed houses and used a hatchet sometimes. It was always fun when you got in a rhythm and then started to swing with that hatchet side down. In other news, I painfully learned to hammer left handed too. After smashing the fingers on your right hand enough, you finally get the feel for it. Love your content as always.
Back when I was a drywall hanger in the early eighties we used a lot of nails. We would tack a sheet with nails and a guy came along after with a screwgun. I always preferred the Wallboard hatchet. Same round face but a straight head and a shorter wooden handle. Never liked the Vaughn. I used a lath hatchet some, but it tends to rip more paper on odd hits. The hatchet end has lots of uses. Scoring, smoothing edges, carry the sheets and prying them as you showed.
Thank you so so much. No one has ever answered this question for me. I'm guessing a roofing hatchet works much the same way with wood shingles. I once was working on a family members house from the 40's or 50's and I noticed their dry wall came in 2'x8' sheets when originally installed. That made so much sense because one person would have an easier time installing that sheet vs a 4x8 sheet produced today.
I love my rock axe! The only time I've had a use for the blade was demoing some metal lath partially embedded in plaster. It worked way better than tin snips and my fingers didn't get all cut up. Great work VC.
My places are all lath/plaster and I always wondered as I drove screws into plaster washers or cut out for access how the lath was installed, thanks for the clue!
Finally someone who knows the history of the axe we use impressive! You might like this old school hangers would pull the handle out of the head and replace it in a very slight angle . The reason is when your nailing off the slight angle would keep your knuckles just barely off the sheet. Look at at an old hangers knuckles the have calluses in the tops if there knuckles from smacking the sheet. Thx for all the information you give especially for the the younger guys who can’t even swing an axe lol
In the Stucco industry they use this hammer to shape and bend metal lath around stucco detail like pillars and build outs around windows. The square head is to get into square inside corners, and the hatchet side further helps you get into tight inside corners with your metal lath. I sell metal lath. I also sell the Vaughan style hatchet. We have lots of Stucco here in Winnipeg. All the stucco guys use this hammer for installing metal lath.
I think I used an Estwing for nailing Sheetrock a long time ago. The “textured” surface of the hammer aided in setting the nail just a little while guarding against breaking the surface of the paper. As he said, using screws is much better. I think once you are used to the screw gun, it is faster than nailing. Change occurs slowly because so many of us are set in our ways. But, I bet you’d be hard pressed to find guys nailing drywall nowadays. One catalog I had featured a lathing hammer with a replaceable hatchet head. It was thin and sharp. It was very much like replacing the blade on your utility knife.
I used one decades ago when furring a CBS block building with a T-nailer. Made it real sharp and used it like your lath example. It worked pretty well, tho I had to chop/score both sides with the 7/8 furring strips.
I never thought about it, but those hatchets spilled over to other trades. They have one for roofers. My Dad said he knew some home builders when he was young. They used a hatchet of some kind to frame. Cut rafters, etc with it. Amazing the talent and skill of old timers. That guy put in nails like a nail gun, lol
Great video. Every day is a school day! Thanks for pointing out the fact that the legendary clip of the plasterboard Chad comes from a 9 min video. Looking forward to watching that too. That boy is known around the world 😂👍🏻🏴
My father put up drywall with a hammer in the 80s, that didn't stop him from using screws... using a corded drill with a dimpler was too inefficient with the old awkward and overpowered drills and all the extension cords. Cordless drills have made such a big difference for DIY.
You carry 54" drywall with the notch in the Estwing, somewhat use it as a rasp, drywall lifter, scraper, split wood for backing, nail puller and still drywall behind steal doors
as a commercial carpenter I carry an estwing hatchet like the one shown in this video. we do not use nails which in my opinion is all a claw hammer is good for. you can use your hatchet to put up board, set behind the board you are cutting on an a frame cart to avoid damage to the next sheet, scrap stubborn drywall mud, use the hatchet end to pry sideways giving you a better angle of leverage, can reshape metal studs and track with the hatchet to remake a corner, and turn it sideways and slide it under track to bust it off the floor, some of these things may be able to be done by a claw hammer but where I work as a lather we definitely prefer the hatchet
While drywalling, the hatchet can be used to sweep floor where you install drywall as well I can put it under my drywall to hold it tight against the other drywall
It makes so much sense if the sharp edge is sharp enough to cut sheet rock with. It’s definitely good for demolition but I’ve never actually seen this in practice, next time I’m on a sheet rock job I will definitely try cutting this way. The guy in that video is super pro check him out adding the nails as he is finishing the one before it I bet he has driven millions of nails
I have a piece of lath i pulled from an old post and beam that had corn cob insulation. It's about six ft. long by sixteen inches wide. Its masterfully split all thru it to make the gaps for the plaster. Hatchet work for sure. Going to make a cool sign or something with it.
You have to nail the second sheet close in the corner because the intersecting sheet leaves you only an inch of nailer. Shinglers hatchets had a knurled bolt in a series of threaded holes on the blade to hook on the previous course to set the reveal for the next course.
As an electrician, I use the Estwing version of this hammer as my go-to. It chops wood, cinder block, and wouldn't you know, drywall. You can cut out electric boxes with ease
Awesome video. I have a second-hand Vaughn lathing hatchet. I got it as a tool for splitting sedimentary rock on a geology field trip (awkwardly, I know) and I now use it on camping trips to drive tent stakes and as a backup for splitting kindling, but I never knew what it was originally intended for. Unfortunately, our house has that awful metal mesh plaster and lath, and I have no idea of what tool to use on it. Maybe dynamite and gasoline, but that's got some downsides for simply hanging a picture.
I learned a lot from your videos, I guess a lot of people getting blisters under tape, I never got one ,I use heavy mud most of the time for imbedding tape, it’s bucket mud , it’s sets in 15 min , where I live pre mixed bucket muds sets in 15 min , can you believe that , at the beginning I had a problem with leaving to much mud under the tape , that was my biggest problem, thanks you for everything
The reason these 2 are shaped differently is because they are 2 different tools, Vaughan & Bushnell also makes a drywall hatchet that is shaped like the Estwing. I assume Vaughan still makes their Lathing hatchet simply because it's what some people are just used to and prefer.
Thank you for this trip down memory lane, Ben. My stepdad did external lathing for adobe with the lathing wire, and tar paper so I have a certain reverence for it. Despite him being an insufferable dick, he was really good at his job while it lasted. He eventually got phased out due to it falling out of favor for better materials, and methods, but that job put plenty of food on the table while it was still being utilized.
Pronunciation tip: the "A" in lath (the thin strips of wood that hold plaster on walls) sounds like the "A in bat. The "A" in lathe (the machine for turning cylindrical forms in wood and metal) sounds like the "A" in cake. The hatchet in question was used in putting up lath, and so it is pronounced like "lath" plus "er. "
You are such a legend! Don’t you love the way things on camera either work out perfectly against what you’re saying usually happens or absolute failure but something to laugh at lol Thank you for your knowledge and sharing always! 🤙🏽
I give those old-school lathers credit, that's at a lot of nailing, forearms like Popeye LOL, I like the wood hatchet personally but I used to do wooden shakes as well. My dad taught me how to do lath accordion style just because his dad taught him, which I find that method pretty kool, so when I run across it during the demo, which isn't very often, I like to find out how wide the board was that was used and I have found a few that were 20 inches wide, lots of respect for the old-school way! Thanks, Ben from one taper to another.
They are still around because once you learn to use one, you won't want to use anything else. I use mine for framing as well as lath. And the blade is razor sharp. It cuts paper used on some lath, or roofing paper.
I'm 59 . Been a hanger since 1979 . Plaster was being phased out in the early 80s in the USA. Plaster was double the cost of sheetrock . When I started you nailed everything and used glue . No glue ? No bueno .
Love your videos. I learn alot from them. Also love that you live in the same province. I do more on the building side of construction but occasionally do drywall and mudding. Whenever I run into something odd and wonder I always look it up and know you will have a video about it. Helped many times. I don't even look at other drywall videos now only yours
I believe the reason for the angled head on the estwing model is to allow a clean swing along the edge of the ceiling/ top of the wall. Notice the hammer face is still parallel to the haft, just offset to over reach
The lathers hatchet is preferred over a regular hammer by steel stud framer/drywallers because the hatchet is a 2 in 1 tool - hammer & lever. Steel stud carpenters use screws most of the time instead of nails so the claw on a framing hammer serves little purpose for this work. Additionally finishers complain when drywall hangers have lots of gaps in their sheetrock that need prefilled. Using a lever to draw your seems tight during install eliminates the issue.
That's exactly what my dad did for a living, I remember when I was young I'd go and help him put up that rock lathe I actually still have some of those tools
I have an apartment in an old 1895 house where you have all the walls made with laths and plaster. Interesting to know how the guys where using that tool at the time.
The axe part come in handy cutting and removing wire lath. Not lathe. Mine is 12 oz so its easy to carry. It was all beat up I just put convex edge restoration and stooped it so it cuts paper. Some out door specialty store sell small hatchets just like these for 150 buck or more.
In the 70’s some California framers would modify a rigger’s axe by cutting off the blade and welding on claws. This was done because of the axes’ more ergonomic handle, the waffle face ( not commonly available on framing hammers of the day), and it’s superior balance. Time was money and a pro would have to drive a 16d with two strikes. It was called a California Special and swinging one meant you were hard-core. That and having a 10” Skil 77.
About using the hatchet side to mark your wall studs or ceiling joist by driving it to leave a mark instead of climbing a ladder to marked them with a pencil or crayon or sharpie whichever is your choice as marking device , reach hit and there it is a line indented on to guide your bailing or screwing. Zas !
Weren't "drywall hammers", or whatever you want to call them, originally used by cedar shake (wood shingle) layers? The first drywall hammers I used had a series of holes along the top edge of the blade. A special screw was inserted in the hole that gave the desired reveal for the cedar shakes.
Thank you V C , now I know the proper use of our Drywall Hammer . My Dad had one in 1977 and We took it on a 2 week Canoe trip down the Barge Canal . It ended up being a Throwing Hawk till the handle broke . Same thing with the Hatchet and 2 Hunting Knives . all broke . No Tv or modern Cell Phone T.Vs back then , we had to do something after Supper . I swear Mel Gibson must have seen us and decades later modeled his Character after Us . I rehafted it years later and still use it now and again . Every time I use it I laugh while remembering wilder Times .
I think the reason why the rounded hammer's head is offset is to save your knuckles. If you strike the nail with the head parallel to it then your knuckles would be further away from the wall. Like you said, it does take practice to change your swing to accommodate for it.
You are correct, and I never could get used to the offset on the Estwing hammer, or the square head hammer. I bought a Wallboard hammer with the round head and was perfectly happy with it.
After renovating my in-laws' 1859 farmhouse, I cant tell you without a doubt: fuck lath and plaster. lol. Especially when all of the true 2x4 and 4x4 studs were milled from local red oak.
omg this is my life right now. Bad enough that the framing has skewed the whole house east a couple degrees..but then they were just eyeballing ALL the studs. I'm getting good at scribing crazy lines and round corners.
I love how you assume we’ve all seen that 1950s drywall video and you’re absolutely right.
Yep, saw it, that guy had nails in his mouth, two hitting every one, astonishing.
Yep guilty .
OMG no idea why that popped up in my suggested. That guy is a beast
Haha same thought
bruh same lol
One feature you missed: on the axe side, it isn't shaped quite like a normal hatchet or shinglers axe. The dip that quickly narrows the blade to the handle is for holding large sheets of drywall in transit. Just pick up one side of the drywall and hook the head underneath and you've got a much more ergonomic way of moving sheets
As I watched this video I thought to myself that I had seen roofers use these.
I'm asking because I honestly have no idea what it is, maybe you know? Sorry for a wall of text.
It's about 3 inches long on the hatchet end and you can tell it was hand forged. It has that dip near the handle. The hammer side also has a taper that looks like it could be used to carry sheets. Is it a dry wall hammer or something else?
I found just the head of it in my grandpa's shed while we were cleaning up everything after my grandma passed. It was in the corner where he used to hang his tools. It was covered in a nice layer of rust and dirt.
I cleaned it up with a wire brush to keep the antique aged look, re-handled it with mahogany, and made a stitched and brass rivet reinforced leather sheath to cover the axe face. I also brought the cutting edge to shaving sharp, it was the only metal removal I did to it. Now it lives on my wall.
yeah but it dents the bevel and can tear the paper.
I was a drywaller for 35 years and never carried drywall with my hatchet. Also I never saw anyone carry drywall with a hatchet. I'm not saying it didn't happen but I am saying it wasn't common practice at least not here on the east Coast
@@donnydarko1898 never seen that either. East coast also.
The hatchet part is for when electricians start reaching towards your finished walls
As an electrician I carry one of these too , to defend myself when I get too close to the finished walls! 😎
🤣 true story! 🖐️💢🪓
😅😅😅
Or for throwing.....after a few cold ones after work waiting to get paid on a friday!
Don't fill their boxes full of mud and we all get along 😆
I started as a union apprentice at Lathers local 42 back the 70's. The lathing axe was used to score and snap wood lath, but that was actually before my time. In the trade, there were two sub categories, nail on and steel stud. Nail on was waterproofing (tar paper) and wiring (chicken wire) held on with furring nails on wood studs, installed by carpenters. The axe end of the hammer was used to bend the wire around for inside corners. Metal lathing or steel stud, lathers erected their own walls with steel stud, installed drop ceilings with steel channel, then covered them with expanded metal lath for plastering, again using the axe end to help form corners. This was done in most commercial buildings including many of the old high rise structures. After wood lath, they developed plasterboard or button board, which you saw being installed in the video. They made a specialty lathing axe with a replaceable blade for cutting the board. That was a hard trade, they expected so many 5 sheet bundles a day, cut, hung, and nailed off in a day. And then there was drywall.......
Seen one of those latching axes,,, now I know what it's for! Thanks! How many sqft did they expect a day?
@@stevehamman4465 It's a little hard to remember as I have been out of the lath & plaster trade for almost 30 years (currently tile setting) but it was about 300 yards outside and about 1K ft. plasterboard inside. Of course this varied dependent on whether the job was cutup or just flat open walls.
@@tomdoe4295 Hope it paid well, sounds like the pressure was high.
@@Oneshot8242 This was back in the 70's & 80's. Pay was around $28.00 an hour but $4.00 PH went into the benefits package (matched by the contractor) and $1.00 PH went into your vacation fund. Great money in those days. The pressure was there but we didn't notice it. Half the shop were baseball players and the other half were dirt bikers so there was always rivalry to out perform the other workers, so meeting or exceeding what was expected wasn't really a factor. (Dirt bikers FTW!)
@@tomdoe4295 $28 in 1978 equates to about $123 today when adjusted for inflation.
Living in a hundred year old plaster lathe house I have extreme respect for the guys that built it, their work with mostly hand tools was incredible.
Its kinda sad its a trade that isn’t really utilized like it used to be. Theres a plasterer youtuber and watching him makes me miss how we used to do tiling too.
Here and there I get to “float” a wall or floor in a shower. And it’s probably my favorite part of my job. But its very rarely. Im actually part of the same union as the plasterers. Idk how much work they get though. I think a majority of their trade now is using forms.
@@Titantitan001 I enjoy fixing the walls, typically termites will feast on one of the lath pieces they find delicious. I rip out the old plaster as far as required, spray the area with termite foam or boracare, then cut new pieces of pressure treated lath, glue and nail them in, then I use Durham's rock hard for my new keys, then I put a plaster mix coat over that, the repaired wall is very strong. No way I'm sticking a crappy piece of drywall in there, I want the original plaster wall restored.
@@nmatthew7469 Durhams is very useful. Does not sand though.
@@nmatthew7469 good on ya my friend! Ive never used drywall either when i was in property management. Thats how I found Kirks youtube channel was trying to learn how to repair plaster. The building I am in now is an old bottling plant that we restored the offices into a living space and downstairs is the jam room/bar/pool. So I’ve had to learn a lot of the old school ways of doing things. Been wanting to do a mud floor with 1x1s in the main part downstairs hehe.
@@hdsnow7049 easy way to avoid sanding is to wet sponge it after it's dried a bit just like when patching cement.
Hey man I just wanted to say that your videos have helped me immensely. And now I do lots of carpentry and drywall for work. But I still watch your videos because of your calm demeanor and relaxing nature. Keep up the great content!
Thanks!!!
As an old drywaller back in the late 70's till about 2000 in Southern California we referred to it as an "axe". My personal brand fav was the Plumb and resembled the lathers hatchet. As for the uses, in those days, well, when I first started in the housing industry it was all nail on, commercial was a mixture of wood and metal and so was the method of attachment. The blade of the axe was used as you showed to pry on occasion but more often, to "clean" the edge of the cut drywall by pushing the top of the axe to knock off the roughness of the cut edge. Also, when hand cutting electrical boxes, you would mark the edges of the box by sighting down from the top and measuring the top of the box and adding the length of it sliding your tape measure and knife, then competing the cuts with your knife. It was always a source of pride to be able to make your hand cuts "clean" so the taper had little or no "detail " work to do with your hand cut boxes. It was a different time for sure but a few of those things still apply.
Thanks for adding to the conversation. I love old school knowledge🙂👍
@@vancouvercarpenter After re-reading what I wrote I should have been a little more clear that we used the blade to score a mark for the sides of the electrical boxes on the lower sheets of drywall and measured to the top of the box only, and just add however much the dimension of what you we cutting, boxes were ( are?) 3-7/8" to allow for a little play. I was at my son's cabin and had to hand cut everything....still got it!
Nice axe work! Lol one of my first commercial steel stud/drywall jobs was a hospital. The boss wouldn't let us use routers and taught us that very technique for cutting boxes. We did get very fast at it by the end of the job and if routers weren't a thing that's how I would still be cutting my boxes. Been at it almost 30 years now.
@@whitesturgeon I first saw someone use a router doing custom homes in about 77-78 maybe, some guys from Texas as I recall. It obviously was a game changer to say the least! It was just a trim router with small drill bit. They broke bits constantly as they weren't designed for the side load. I haven't thought about that stuff in years! Any hanger worth his salt knows how to cut his boxes by hand. Tough way to make a living, we were all piece workers so time was money!
I came up the same way with my dad and uncles, no router no screw gun, if we had a cord it was for the radio and don’t touch the old man’s radio it only played two kinds of music, country and western lol, just a bench, bucket for your tools and a square that’s all you had or needed, I was making money before most guys could find a plug to plug all there crap in lol those were the days most hangers made more money before lunch than most trades would make all day
Speaking of smaller nails for lath, when I was about 4 years old I got a bag of blue lath nails (they were actually blue), a hammer and a block of wood from my dad so I could “work” with him on jobs.
The offset angle of the head on the estwing makes it easier to nail the bottom, like when you're bent over.
That's a fine use for it but it's moreso to keep your knuckles off the board, especially in corners when you swing horizontal.
And above your head (ceiling boards) I believe
Long time, no comment. Sorry. I'm a tinsmith, but when I was 18, I was a carpenter's helper for a year. We had no screw gun back in '79. It was all nails. I hadn't perfected the art of "spinning nails". Every so often a nail would come up to my fingers facing the wrong way. I would drop it on the floor. My buddy informed me I needed to keep those nails, they were for the other side of the room.
Cool video, don't hang a ton of board anymore but I was taught to tack with nails (walls only) and screw off later. I still use that method sometimes and haven't had any problems. As far as hatchets go I like Walboard the best as they seemed to make the nicest dimples.
Yep, Wallboards were my fav, perfect balance.
You can also use a drywall hatchet for rasping board, pulling stand ups when boarding solo, bending back track after all other trades trample over them, wedging board into tight steel door frames, lifting board off ground for dunnage
Watching that guy work in the old video was so satisfying. Love watching anyone that's good with their craft.
My dad was a carpenter, he had all kinds of hammers including one of these. In truth I am pretty sure I only saw him use two. The big one for framing and slightly smaller one for trim. He was that 2 hit guy and it didnt matter if it was the smallest trim nail or huge spike. Two hits. He seemed to like to let drywallers do their thing and cabinet makers do there thing. I saw do both in my home growing up but typically he respected specialized workers. But I digress this was about other “hatchet hammer” he had.
Years of gaining the confidence to hit very hard instead of holding back for accuracy. Took me probably 15 years to get to that point lol. Watching the other guys do it made me want it so bad! Even cooler when you got the magnet.
Obviously there are some nails where its just not happening. But many of them stand no chance against a hammer
That large framing hammer was called a "Rig Axe" ! They were usually about 28 oz's !
Like Mr. Miyagi, one to set the nail in place, one to hammer it in.
As a plasterer I’m impressed that you know it’s a lathers hammer. Small point of order: it’s pronounced with a flat “a” like tap. The hard “a” is used in the word lathe like in spinning wood on a machine. Also if it has a cleated face it’s really a roofers hammer. The cleat chews up the face paper causing issues with blisters and flags so they used smooth faced on Rock Lath (a brand name of early gyp board). In the wood lath days (not lathe) the lathers would use the hatchet to cleanly chop the wood to length in a split second. Also lathers were the original drop ceiling/coffer installers. I pay homage to those forgotten craftsmen of the past like Marvin Reiney the last Master Lather of St. Louis who passed away just a few years ago. He was buried with his end nippers in his right hand and a small “hank” of tie wire in the left. He invented the machine to bend channel iron into curved shapes used in more modernist building designs.
don't forget the ol " chop it in" maneuver with the hatchet
drywall finishers loved chopped in corners or seams
I forgot that one because I don’t do it.
I've heard before that wood lath was installed soaking wet, out of a 55 gallon drum. I imagine it must have been pretty heavy. I do know wood lath should be soaking wet when the first coat (brown coat) of plaster is applied, so it kind of makes sense. Anyway, the lath was a lot easier to chop off when it's fully soaked. Also, I've seen from tons of demolition that they tend to chop it on an angle, for more of a slicing action.
Probably wet the lathe so the plaster wouldn't dry out to quickly. Like wetting down the form before concreting...
Back in the day when people first started using screws to hang drywall most finishers were afraid of them. After trying them we would only use them for the ceiling for a couple of years. Then of course it transformed into a complete use. Adapters were made for drills so you wouldn't sink them to far. It was a lot better. You know how some people are set in there ways though. We could nail it up 2 times faster than screwing it off. When I say back in the day I was making $3 a hr and thought I was in high cotton
My brother was a roofer (back when he still had cartilage in his joints!) and he once had a shingling race, him with a hammer versus his "I know how to do everything better than you low-lifes" foreman with a nail gun.
He won, and the foreman didn't show up with the crews for a week he was so ticked off.
@@MonkeyJedi99 the difference being, of course, that any schmo off the street would be almost as fast with the nail gun as your brother was after years of practice.
@@RobotJustice That's what made the whole thing even funnier. This foreman was all hat, no cowboy, as they say in some places.
I hung rock for a short period of time in the mid 70s with a lead guy. We nailed everything, much faster than screwing. I hated it when we had to screw it. Hung it with nails on the edges then screwed it off. We got paid a buck for each 12' sheet. We averaged 200 sheets a day. We hung the lid together then split up, one of upstairs the other down. Lifting a full 12' sheet up against the lid by myself took a bit of practice to get good at doing it. We did one model of tract homes where the boss would order 16 footers to do the lid in the living room to eliminate butt joints. Hanging those was a bitch, broke a couple. We pushed the lid up with our left arms standing on short homemade stools. A sheet rock shortage gave me a good excuse to give up that line of work. The best compliment we got was when a finisher said he would follow those guys anywhere. We took pride in our work.
@@karlbishop7481 yeah you could pop those nails in like it was nothing . Kind of like roofing . That's awesome oh the memories
My house was entirely lath and plaster. I've had to replace some of it with drywall because eventually they start to pop off the wall but I always find it remarkable that they built a house like that. That had to be thousands of tiny nails to hold up all those strips of wood. And then it still had to be covered with plaster which was a trick in and of itself. I've seen some areas of plaster that were almost half inch think and other areas where it was only about an eighth of an inch thick.
A trick we learned when replacing plaster with drywall was to save enough lathe to clad the studs so you can use a thinner drywall and still re-use all of the old (sometimes un-matchable) finish trim.
Typically, it was 3/8th to 1/2-inch drywall, depending on who did the plastering way back when.
The history goes back a lot further than that. The "s-wing" or goose-wing, version is related to the carpenters hatchet, carpenters axe, or hewing axe that was a popular tool from pre-industrial Europe.
It was so ubiquitous that the Franks, Vikings, and later medieval knights used them as battle axes and throwing weapons, since replacing them when lost or damaged was relatively easy. They were actually the symbol of the Franks in their early days.
I am renovating an old house lath and plaster throughout. While making changes to wall positions I removed a lot of the old work. I reflect on how many thousands of nails and lath strips it took to just make a base for the plaster, these labourers have my respect. The finished plaster surfaces, over a hundred years old, are in much of my project still intact and literally smooth as a you-know-what. senior from Ontario.
Oh Vancouver Sheetrock guy, in the 70's we called those weapons lath ax, and instead of using a shim or speed square for measuring space between lath, we would stick the ax between lath up to the notch, that made a good space to key...
I'm a steel stud carpenter, the hatchets are really good for shimming your sheet off the ground, and for busting out spreaders in metal doorframes without carrying cold chisel around.
Yeah most honest statement... " I don't know"
Metal stud guys use lathing hammers , dry wall hammers and shingle hatchets for several reasons... The blade is a good wedge, you can pop screws loose with it, the edge is used to check screw depth and for demo purposes.
The reason for the angled head is knuckle clearance while nailing the lower nails.
The exaggerated dish on the face is actually done to keep the edges of the nail from deforming as much as possible to prevent them from cutting the paper. The head of the nail is dished to hold the mud
When the nail heads stripped as you pulled. I felt that lol. Always happens in the most inconvenient spots too
Yes! Finally a video about boarding! Here's my two cents...that square headed hammer is a roofing hammer and that Estwing with the round head is an actual drywall hammer. The square hammer is much heavier, for driving roofing nails in a single swing. The Estwing is lighter for more finesse driving drywall nails. The 'hatchet' back is useful for prying lumber or drywall into position in tight spots. I haven't used drywall nails in about a decade and I don't carry a drywall hammer on my belt, but I keep one around in the tool box, just because. All that being said, I dunno squat about the history of drywall hammers or the lathe and plaster you spoke of...except for demolishing old lathe to be replaced with drywall...to which I would say, get a framing hammer or a Stanley 'Fubar'.
The lathing axe looks a lot like a roofing hammer but there are some subtle differences. The video is spot on and accurate.
I believe you are right about the hatchets. I have a red handle, square face hatchet that I used almost 50 years ago as a carpenter when we put on asphalt shingles. I had just bought that tool and the edges were very sharp. Guess what? I sliced my finger wide open the first day I used it. I probably hit it half a dozen times before it healed up. Our crew didn't have roof guns at that time.
I still have my first Vaugh lathing hatchet . Bought it over 40 yrs ago. Nails were still dominant and cheaper. Didn't get a corded drywall gun till 90. I still have that too.
Very cool. Now I'm wondering where mine went.
As a former drywaller the main use (for me) for the hatchet axe end was for lifting bottom sheets up instead of using a foot lift
Sadly, I watched your video about 40 years too late. I was a drywaller back in the 80s for about five years. In that entire time I don’t think I ever heard anybody explain what the axe portion of the hammer was for. I absolutely love your videos. They’re all informative and you are so skilled at your job that, even without the interesting information, it’s a joy just watching you work. When someone is as skilled as you at their job, and they obviously enjoy their work, it’s a pleasure just to watch them do their craft.
I love how your vids are real and practical. You do what we all do when a nail head breaks off and pound her home, most would reshoot the video until it went as planned.
On metal studs I primarily use my hatchet as a prybar of sorts to shimmy my board over to close up my flat joints when standing up board. It can also be used in conjunction with pliers or some other object as a fulcrum to create a half-ass floorjack.
One more reason why I used a drywall hammer is the angle of the handle to the head and the flatness on top to nail close to the ceiling into the top plate. My hammer is lighter than a framing hammer. Old school ,we would always tack our boards up with nails and screw them off later. Easier than holding a drill with a cord attached. Also the hatchet end was used for insulation.
I live in the UK and Plasterboard/ dry wall fixers seldom carry these lath hammers now . But roof tilers do . The hammer side is used for nailing tiles to roof battens and the axe is handy for tapping tiles down length ways to cut in half and cutting corners if fitting round chimney stacks etc. Complex cuts are done with disc cutters. I know because I worked in that trade for many years.
Havent hung any drywall at all in my life, but I can attest to the fact that this tool is fantastic for various forms of woodworking and bushcraft. It works for splitting shingle style slats for kindling & building purpouses ( if you baton it like a froe), can be used as a lightweight hatchet to sned small limbs off trees, can be used as a chisel style tool and much more.
A few points of advice I offer to people looking to invest in this tool are as follows:
• MAKE A PROPPER SCABBARD FOR IT if you pick one up for yourself. Trust me. Safty first.
• Buy the one with the wooden handle and not the full metal tang from Eastwing. You can always replace a handle, and it's a lot cheaper then you replacing the whole tool if the handle breaks.
• Tune and polish the factory edge bevels to suit the function you need.
• Take a rasp, sandpaper and oil/ spray on rubber grip coating to the handle to adjust it to your hand to mitigate hand fatigue. I did this to mine and it helped out emmensely.
• Ponder if a lanyard ( wrist strap) is a viable ( optional) safety measure you want to install onto your tool. If yes, then add it in. If not, consider it like a tassle and deem it " a hassle".
Hope these recommendations help.
It is also used for cedar shingles on roofs or walls , but most of us (carpenters) use pneumatic nailers or staplers now
Always carry a 5 in one for levering and stuff like you mentioned. But I bought a Milwaukee “drywall hammer” is how it’s labeled in store. The main justification of buying it was for drywall demo. Typically use some type of saw for clean fast cuts, but, sometimes use a hammer to start Incase wires n pipes. The axe head make much less of a mess and cleaner breakup which I just like. It’s also handy for hacking through chicken wire for stucco demo and yes, lath and plaster. Love your Chanel!
I inherited my Dad's Estwing hatchet last year. At the time I really wasn't certain what it was or what is was used for. Thanks to you Ben...now I do! Great short. Stay well. (Note to the haters: Yes, I could have Googled it, but it wasn't important at the time to do so!)
It's a roofing hatchet
I used my grandpas old ones as camping hatches for going on 20 years now, and they're the absolute best.
You can split branches for firewood, drive stakes for tents or tie down ropes, and even pull the metal or plastic ones back up with the nail puller usually.
We never used them for drywall though, it's always been screws. We didn't even know they were for drywall until a few years back. Always thought they were old roofing hammers
That big Vaughn was my first drywall axe I purchased myself. I just thought it looked so cool lol. The problem was that it didn't make pretty round little dimples like the round heads do. I destroyed a lot of board back then. The Estwing's are pretty standard now because we mostly use them not to pound nails but to pry with as it's hard to break the steel handle (though we break off the nail pullers regularly).
The greatest use I had for the axe side was marking rafters and trusses before we hung lids . We also used them to mark lightboxes hanging side walls .
That's right we used the hatchet to mark electrical boxes too I almost forgot. My first training boss said it was a "bad habit" though and said to always use a pencil. Lol
Very cool that you took the time to look into this. I’ve demo’d miles of the old lath and plaster , wondering if , one day , the skilz would be in demand again(?). Plaster had(has) such a nice look. I’ve skim-coated plenty of drywall for clients that wanted a plaster-look with fairly good results. Love your channel.
There's work restoring historic buildings. Probably that work will remain steady for years to come because the only buildings where you'd bother to do L&P are protected. I imagine those guys also get work coating blueboard in high-end construction.
More than a nice look, has great insulation for temperature and sound and fire resistant properties.
There is such a thing as Thin-Coat Plaster. It uses a special drywall board where the paper is more rough/porous so that the plaster will properly bond to it, and the plaster is put on at about a 1/8" thickness. It gives you most of the benefits of traditional plaster including the hardness and smoothness but installs much faster.
@@WallDocwe plasterers call it blueboard
@@markadkins9290 Yeah I knew that but I was trying to dumb it down 🙂 Lots of people get blue board mixed up with green board for bathrooms (especially the purple variant) which are on the opposite end of the spectrum for porousness.
From my days working on old brownstones I've wondered if there was someone on full-time tool-sharpening duty. An apprentice or daughter or maiden aunt, just doing nothing but sharpening hatchets and saws and chisels. Just a thought. Neat video. Thanks.
When my dad first taught me to hang drywall at our house he made me use nails. He was an engineer, not a drywaller.
As a teenager I roofed houses and used a hatchet sometimes. It was always fun when you got in a rhythm and then started to swing with that hatchet side down.
In other news, I painfully learned to hammer left handed too. After smashing the fingers on your right hand enough, you finally get the feel for it.
Love your content as always.
Back when I was a drywall hanger in the early eighties we used a lot of nails. We would tack a sheet with nails and a guy came along after with a screwgun. I always preferred the Wallboard hatchet. Same round face but a straight head and a shorter wooden handle. Never liked the Vaughn. I used a lath hatchet some, but it tends to rip more paper on odd hits. The hatchet end has lots of uses. Scoring, smoothing edges, carry the sheets and prying them as you showed.
Thank you so so much. No one has ever answered this question for me. I'm guessing a roofing hatchet works much the same way with wood shingles. I once was working on a family members house from the 40's or 50's and I noticed their dry wall came in 2'x8' sheets when originally installed. That made so much sense because one person would have an easier time installing that sheet vs a 4x8 sheet produced today.
@lexwells4763
They are made differently.
I love my rock axe! The only time I've had a use for the blade was demoing some metal lath partially embedded in plaster. It worked way better than tin snips and my fingers didn't get all cut up.
Great work VC.
My places are all lath/plaster and I always wondered as I drove screws into plaster washers or cut out for access how the lath was installed, thanks for the clue!
🤣 cowboy nailing 💕👍
PS- yes Im guilty of already seeing that video too 😄 that guy is a master at his trade
Great video, I loved learning this -- loved the 1950s vid, too, wow that guy was amazing. I love your humor!! Will be watching more of your videos!
Finally someone who knows the history of the axe we use impressive! You might like this old school hangers would pull the handle out of the head and replace it in a very slight angle . The reason is when your nailing off the slight angle would keep your knuckles just barely off the sheet. Look at at an old hangers knuckles the have calluses in the tops if there knuckles from smacking the sheet. Thx for all the information you give especially for the the younger guys who can’t even swing an axe lol
In the Stucco industry they use this hammer to shape and bend metal lath around stucco detail like pillars and build outs around windows.
The square head is to get into square inside corners, and the hatchet side further helps you get into tight inside corners with your metal lath. I sell metal lath. I also sell the Vaughan style hatchet. We have lots of Stucco here in Winnipeg. All the stucco guys use this hammer for installing metal lath.
I think I used an Estwing for nailing Sheetrock a long time ago. The “textured” surface of the hammer aided in setting the nail just a little while guarding against breaking the surface of the paper. As he said, using screws is much better. I think once you are used to the screw gun, it is faster than nailing. Change occurs slowly because so many of us are set in our ways. But, I bet you’d be hard pressed to find guys nailing drywall nowadays. One catalog I had featured a lathing hammer with a replaceable hatchet head. It was thin and sharp. It was very much like replacing the blade on your utility knife.
I used one decades ago when furring a CBS block building with a T-nailer. Made it real sharp and used it like your lath example. It worked pretty well, tho I had to chop/score both sides with the 7/8 furring strips.
I never thought about it, but those hatchets spilled over to other trades. They have one for roofers. My Dad said he knew some home builders when he was young. They used a hatchet of some kind to frame. Cut rafters, etc with it. Amazing the talent and skill of old timers. That guy put in nails like a nail gun, lol
Great video. Every day is a school day! Thanks for pointing out the fact that the legendary clip of the plasterboard Chad comes from a 9 min video. Looking forward to watching that too. That boy is known around the world 😂👍🏻🏴
My father put up drywall with a hammer in the 80s, that didn't stop him from using screws... using a corded drill with a dimpler was too inefficient with the old awkward and overpowered drills and all the extension cords. Cordless drills have made such a big difference for DIY.
You carry 54" drywall with the notch in the Estwing, somewhat use it as a rasp, drywall lifter, scraper, split wood for backing, nail puller and still drywall behind steal doors
as a commercial carpenter I carry an estwing hatchet like the one shown in this video. we do not use nails which in my opinion is all a claw hammer is good for. you can use your hatchet to put up board, set behind the board you are cutting on an a frame cart to avoid damage to the next sheet, scrap stubborn drywall mud, use the hatchet end to pry sideways giving you a better angle of leverage, can reshape metal studs and track with the hatchet to remake a corner, and turn it sideways and slide it under track to bust it off the floor, some of these things may be able to be done by a claw hammer but where I work as a lather we definitely prefer the hatchet
As a boarder, you need the hatchet end to show off your awesome tomahawk skills
While drywalling, the hatchet can be used to sweep floor where you install drywall as well I can put it under my drywall to hold it tight against the other drywall
i use mine all the time, it comes in clutch for marking receptacles on the board when hanging and helps with demo as well
It makes so much sense if the sharp edge is sharp enough to cut sheet rock with. It’s definitely good for demolition but I’ve never actually seen this in practice, next time I’m on a sheet rock job I will definitely try cutting this way. The guy in that video is super pro check him out adding the nails as he is finishing the one before it I bet he has driven millions of nails
I have a piece of lath i pulled from an old post and beam that had corn cob insulation. It's about six ft. long by sixteen inches wide. Its masterfully split all thru it to make the gaps for the plaster. Hatchet work for sure. Going to make a cool sign or something with it.
You have to nail the second sheet close in the corner because the intersecting sheet leaves you only an inch of nailer. Shinglers hatchets had a knurled bolt in a series of threaded holes on the blade to hook on the previous course to set the reveal for the next course.
Thanks for this video and the one linked😀 it was super interesting watching the gypsum lathe and plaster vid!
As an electrician, I use the Estwing version of this hammer as my go-to. It chops wood, cinder block, and wouldn't you know, drywall. You can cut out electric boxes with ease
Awesome video. I have a second-hand Vaughn lathing hatchet. I got it as a tool for splitting sedimentary rock on a geology field trip (awkwardly, I know) and I now use it on camping trips to drive tent stakes and as a backup for splitting kindling, but I never knew what it was originally intended for.
Unfortunately, our house has that awful metal mesh plaster and lath, and I have no idea of what tool to use on it. Maybe dynamite and gasoline, but that's got some downsides for simply hanging a picture.
As a Plasrerer and a Hanger the Rock Hatchet is a must have.
And commonly use for fine tuning sheets once in place.
I learned a lot from your videos, I guess a lot of people getting blisters under tape, I never got one ,I use heavy mud most of the time for imbedding tape, it’s bucket mud , it’s sets in 15 min , where I live pre mixed bucket muds sets in 15 min , can you believe that , at the beginning I had a problem with leaving to much mud under the tape , that was my biggest problem, thanks you for everything
The reason these 2 are shaped differently is because they are 2 different tools, Vaughan & Bushnell also makes a drywall hatchet that is shaped like the Estwing.
I assume Vaughan still makes their Lathing hatchet simply because it's what some people are just used to and prefer.
Thank you for this trip down memory lane, Ben. My stepdad did external lathing for adobe with the lathing wire, and tar paper so I have a certain reverence for it. Despite him being an insufferable dick, he was really good at his job while it lasted. He eventually got phased out due to it falling out of favor for better materials, and methods, but that job put plenty of food on the table while it was still being utilized.
Pronunciation tip: the "A" in lath (the thin strips of wood that hold plaster on walls) sounds like the "A in bat. The "A" in lathe (the machine for turning cylindrical forms in wood and metal) sounds like the "A" in cake. The hatchet in question was used in putting up lath, and so it is pronounced like "lath" plus "er.
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You are such a legend! Don’t you love the way things on camera either work out perfectly against what you’re saying usually happens or absolute failure but something to laugh at lol
Thank you for your knowledge and sharing always! 🤙🏽
Wow! 1950's lather has serious skill and experience!
I give those old-school lathers credit, that's at a lot of nailing, forearms like Popeye LOL, I like the wood hatchet personally but I used to do wooden shakes as well. My dad taught me how to do lath accordion style just because his dad taught him, which I find that method pretty kool, so when I run across it during the demo, which isn't very often, I like to find out how wide the board was that was used and I have found a few that were 20 inches wide, lots of respect for the old-school way! Thanks, Ben from one taper to another.
They are still around because once you learn to use one, you won't want to use anything else. I use mine for framing as well as lath. And the blade is razor sharp. It cuts paper used on some lath, or roofing paper.
I'm 59 . Been a hanger since 1979 . Plaster was being phased out in the early 80s in the USA. Plaster was double the cost of sheetrock . When I started you nailed everything and used glue . No glue ? No bueno .
Still rocking my Vaughan CF2 you recommended in an older video, I have no reason for one of these, but dang it looks like fun lol.
Love your videos. I learn alot from them. Also love that you live in the same province. I do more on the building side of construction but occasionally do drywall and mudding. Whenever I run into something odd and wonder I always look it up and know you will have a video about it. Helped many times. I don't even look at other drywall videos now only yours
I believe the reason for the angled head on the estwing model is to allow a clean swing along the edge of the ceiling/ top of the wall. Notice the hammer face is still parallel to the haft, just offset to over reach
I think the angled head on the hammer would probably be good for ceilings. On the wall I would be bending Nails as well
The lathers hatchet is preferred over a regular hammer by steel stud framer/drywallers because the hatchet is a 2 in 1 tool - hammer & lever. Steel stud carpenters use screws most of the time instead of nails so the claw on a framing hammer serves little purpose for this work. Additionally finishers complain when drywall hangers have lots of gaps in their sheetrock that need prefilled. Using a lever to draw your seems tight during install eliminates the issue.
The head on the Estwing is also offset so you aren't bashing your knuckles on the wall as you finish your swing.
That's exactly what my dad did for a living, I remember when I was young I'd go and help him put up that rock lathe I actually still have some of those tools
I have an apartment in an old 1895 house where you have all the walls made with laths and plaster. Interesting to know how the guys where using that tool at the time.
The axe part come in handy cutting and removing wire lath. Not lathe. Mine is 12 oz so its easy to carry. It was all beat up I just put convex edge restoration and stooped it so it cuts paper. Some out door specialty store sell small hatchets just like these for 150 buck or more.
In the 70’s some California framers would modify a rigger’s axe by cutting off the blade and welding on claws. This was done because of the axes’ more ergonomic handle, the waffle face ( not commonly available on framing hammers of the day), and it’s superior balance. Time was money and a pro would have to drive a 16d with two strikes. It was called a California Special and swinging one meant you were hard-core. That and having a 10” Skil 77.
👍 your videos are always awesome and informative. Thank you
Keep up the amazing work Ben you always do and amazing job on your work and your videos. Your videos never disappoint.
I have heard them also called shingling hammers.
Splitting shingles and nailing them in place.
Maybe a different shaped head and/or blade!
I used to do metal stud remodles and I can tell you those hammers make great door stops.
About using the hatchet side to mark your wall studs or ceiling joist by driving it to leave a mark instead of climbing a ladder to marked them with a pencil or crayon or sharpie whichever is your choice as marking device , reach hit and there it is a line indented on to guide your bailing or screwing. Zas !
Weren't "drywall hammers", or whatever you want to call them, originally used by cedar shake (wood shingle) layers? The first drywall hammers I used had a series of holes along the top edge of the blade. A special screw was inserted in the hole that gave the desired reveal for the cedar shakes.
Thank you V C , now I know the proper use of our Drywall Hammer . My Dad had one in 1977 and We took it on a 2 week Canoe trip down the Barge Canal . It ended up being a Throwing Hawk till the handle broke . Same thing with the Hatchet and 2 Hunting Knives . all broke . No Tv or modern Cell Phone T.Vs back then , we had to do something after Supper . I swear Mel Gibson must have seen us and decades later modeled his Character after Us . I rehafted it years later and still use it now and again . Every time I use it I laugh while remembering wilder Times .
I still have those in my hammer draw. Don't know if you can even buy them these days. When I was a kid I remember Grandad sharpening his. Cheers
I think the reason why the rounded hammer's head is offset is to save your knuckles. If you strike the nail with the head parallel to it then your knuckles would be further away from the wall. Like you said, it does take practice to change your swing to accommodate for it.
You are correct, and I never could get used to the offset on the Estwing hammer, or the square head hammer. I bought a Wallboard hammer with the round head and was perfectly happy with it.
I never knew what that tool was actually intended for . I always thought it was strictly for serial killers😮🙀🙌✅🔥🙌🔥🔥
After renovating my in-laws' 1859 farmhouse, I cant tell you without a doubt: fuck lath and plaster. lol. Especially when all of the true 2x4 and 4x4 studs were milled from local red oak.
and real attention paid to exact 16" centers....every drywall sheet needed to be cut on 2 or 3 sides lol
omg this is my life right now. Bad enough that the framing has skewed the whole house east a couple degrees..but then they were just eyeballing ALL the studs. I'm getting good at scribing crazy lines and round corners.
Damn, in that old video, dude is incredible with that hatchet thingy.
old school...i love it. thanks for your video.