I (heart) air hammers

[ihatemybike]

Working on a friends Liberty today one of the bolts for the upper control arm would not slide out of the bushing assembly. We tried for probably an hour to get that thing to slide out before we took a break and went shopping for tie rod ends and antifreeze. While we were at Murray's we wondered down the tool isle and I saw the air hammer and thought that might work, but we weren't sure if his compressor would be up to running it. Since he bought his compressor at Lowe's we headed over there to check its ratings. In the same isle he noticed an air tools kit with the air hammer, an air ratchet, an impact wrench, and various other attachments for $68. We both looked it over and he said what the heck and got it. Once back in his garage we assembled the hammer with the attachment that kinda looks like a pick, put the nut, socket, and an extension on the bolt, set the pick into the drive of the extension and promptly pushed the bolt back through it's hole. Sweet!

We then used the air ratchet and impact wrench elsewhere in the repairs to his Jeep. I'm sold, I need air tools!

[BLAZER]

Would that have been an air chisel? I have one of those multi sets, my impact wrench is very low duty, won't break much lose, but my ratchet/die grinder/chisel have been irreplaceable. I use the die grinder to cut heads off ball joint rivets, then chisel to push them out, works great.

[peter]

Air tools are great. I had originally bought a Campbell Hausfield set for somewhere around $70-$100 approx. 18 yrs ago. Better than nothing, but provided you have a compressor that'll supply you at least 3 cfm. I ended up spending about $250 CAN for an Ingersol Rand 231 about 2-3 yrs ago. Needs around 4.5 cfm for constant use, but what a brute!

My neighbor borrowed my air chisel gun with pick tip (not to mention using my stationary 5hp air compressor for the whole time he was building his home) back in 2004. He needed to break the cement on his foundation somewhere where there shouldn't have been any. Long story short, they actually started fighting between themselves as to who was gonna use it. I had used it to break the cement around the future location of the toilet bowl in my then-new basement so as to install the bowl hardware. Man, that cement broke up like it was nothing!

[Mr_Roboto]

Yeah, definitely need some shop air; my compressor is sitting dormant in the garage atm, just need to hook it up and get the lines connected.

[chemist]

I absolutely love my pneumatic tools! I will say this. I bought my air hammer for $20 and mostly use it for removing cracked cinderblocks for basement repairs. I will remember this application. I'd have tried the impact wrench before the air hammer though, but it sounds like you'd have had no joy there anyway.

I have recently discovered that when it comes to pneumatic tools, especially impact wrenches, you get what you pay for. For years I used one of those kits. I think it actually was around $70 (a Hurricane kit from Sam's Club). I dropped the oil into my tools before every use, but still the impact wrench would still struggle on lug nuts and I always blamed my compressor--I was running off a pancake... When I upgraded the compressor, the problem stayed. Last weekend I bought an Ingersol Rand impact wrench for about $120. It was like upgrading from a Yugo to a BMW on lug nut removal! Sometimes still have trouble with stuck bolts. Also, I always use a torque wrench on lug nuts after dropping the vehicle just to be sure the impact wrench did its job. About a quarter of the time I found it didn't. Hasn't happened with the IR.

The moral of the story: buy the kit to get started, but plan on upgrading pieces as you get the money.