the.com/nail gun
A hammer that outsourced the violence and kept the speed.
means A power tool that drives nails into material using compressed air, electricity, or combustible gas instead of a swinging arm.
from A straightforward compound of 'nail' and 'gun' — the 'gun' part borrowed from firearms vocabulary purely for the action (a mechanism that fires a projectile down a barrel), not for any shared lineage. Pneumatic versions emerged in the 20th century as an industrial tool, riding the same compressed-air technology that powered other factory machinery, then shrank and cheapened enough to land in home garages. The name is pure function: it's a gun that shoots nails, nothing more poetic than that.
- origin
- first patented in the 1950s for framing crews
- power source
- compressed air, gas, or battery, not elbow grease
- risk
- causes more ER visits than almost any other tool
- nickname
- carpenters call it the finish line of framing