Pull Nails

Salvaging lumber from renovations or deconstruction (careful demolition) of old buildings can be a low cost source of old growth wood. After it's cleaned up, old growth wood more beautiful, stronger than modern wood of the same species. It also has great dimensional stability, having already dried for 100 years or so (depending on where you've salvaged it from).

The downside, often, is that salvaged lumber can be full of nails that must all be pulled before the piece is worked. Nails that have been in place for 100 years are often rusted tightly in place. Nails are often so rusted in place that they break before they move.

This is a procedure for removing old nails that are tightly rusted into old wood. Once you are set up, it takes about a minute to loosen a nail so that you can pull it out with a pair of needle-nosed pliers. I've used this procedures for nails as big as 4" to small finishing nails that have been broken off below the surface of the wood.