I have to hand it to Craftsman for this cool tool.  A Li-Ion powered automatic hammer.  In my work I don’t use a hammer that often, but I have to say this is a great Idea.

Think of it like a handheld jackhammer and you start to get the point.  A piston inside a sleeve travels a small distance at great speed to drive the nail home.  So instead of one or two giant swings for a standard 3-1/2” nail, the auto-hammer sinks it with around 34 small strikes per second.

I don’t know how long the charge will last (how many nails can it drive?), but the awesome factor of this tool is for using in tight spaces..  no more backswing.  One great use I could think of is nailing in electrical boxes into new construction for those locations where you don’t have a standard 16″ stud spacing.

Pricing is set at about $100, which is about what you’d expect for a 12V Li-Ion setup like this.

Your thumbs will thank you...