Cat’s Paw or Nail Puller
Cat’s Paw the PURRfect tool for nail removal
Someone recently asked me how to remove a few rotted boards from his deck. I suggested using a cat’s paw to which he looked at me with a puzzled expression, and said, “a what?”. I was referring to a nail puller but I’ve always called it a cat’s paw. I wondered why.
An Internet search on the definition of cat’s paw yields;
Cat’s Paw To be made a cat’s paw of, i.e. the tool of another, the medium of doing anothers dirty work. The allusion is to the fable of the monkey who wanted to get from the fire some roasted chestnuts, and took the paw of the cat to get them from the hot ashes.
A cat’s paw or “nail puller” is a round or hexagonal steel tool that curves at one end to form a pointed, cup-shaped tip with a V-slot for gripping nail heads. You hold the tool’s shank with one hand and drive the claw around a nail head with a hammer.
When the V-slot is firmly seated around the nail’s shank, you rock the bar back to raise the head and then finish pulling the nail with the hammer’s claw. The cat’s paw, also called a nail puller, is invaluable for demolition work but, because it tears up the wood around the nail head.
This is not a tool to used for finish work.
Now that we took care of what a “cat’s paw” is, I wonder why they call a pry bar a “crow” bar???
~ concord carpenter
