It’s Friday, and you know what that means here on The Smack: time for another DIY project to add to your weekend plan arsenal.
If you’re like us, you have a fairly organized workspace but somehow manage to continually lose your hammers…resulting in a drawer filled with replaced hammers down the road. If one of them happens to be a good-sized hammer with a wooden handle, consider this Ultimate Hammer project.
The Ultimate Hammer is a combination hammer, screwdriver, bottle opener, nail holder and ruler all built into one nifty piece of hardware. You may never need to use it in your garage or workshop, but it may come in handy when taken in the car or on a camping trip.
Conceived of by Instructables user M3G, the project uses other simple items that are probably laying in your utility drawers or can be bought on the cheap at your local hardware store:
Step 1: What You Need
- Drill
- Hacksaw
- An old hammer
- Tape measure
- Epoxy
- A Sharpie
- Strong magnet
- A nail with a large head
- A magnetic bit holder
Step 2: The Bottle Opener
- Drill a hole the diameter of the nail in roughly the same position as in the first image (about 5/8″ from the bottom of the head of the hammer). Drill about halfway through the hammer.
- Insert the nail into the hole and measure the depth of the hole. Add 3/8″ to the depth. That is how long you want the nail to be. Cut off any excess from the pointy end.
- Insert the nail into the hole. Check to make sure the head sticks out roughly 3/8″. If it does, epoxy it in place.
Step 3: The Screwdriver
- The magnetic bit holder is basically a tube with a magnet about 1/2″ down the tube on one end, and the bit you insert into the drill at the other. Use the hacksaw to make a cut about 1/4″ below the magnet between the magnet and the bit. Keep the section with the magnet.
- Drill a hole about 1/4″ shorter than the section of the bit holder you kept using a drill bit the same diameter as the bit holder. The hole should be about 1/2″ deep. Make sure the hole is in the center of the bottom of the handle.
- Insert the section of the bit holder you kept into the hole. You may need to epoxy it in place.
Step 4: The Nail Holder
- Epoxy the magnet onto the side of the head of the hammer.
Step 5: The Ruler
- I put two strips of masking tape on the handle of the hammer, each strip perpendicular to the base of the handle. Then I drew a straight line with the sharpie between the two strips of tape every inch, and a smaller line down from the top strip to mark each half inch.
- I applied some clear varnish to the handle to protect the lines of the ruler.
Have any ideas for an upcoming DIY Weekend Smack project? Send them on in to tips@www.solidsmack.com.
