anyone know of a good staple puller?

[HowardH]

I am replacing the center located undermount drawer rollers throughout my house with an undermount extension slide.  The old hardware is attached to the top edge of the rails of the face frame using a staple gun.  I changed one out today but it was a royal PITA to remove the staples using a small flat screwdriver to try to pry them up to remove the hardware.  I thought about using a small hacksaw blade and just cut the staples.  A very thin bladed but strong pry bar might work too if I knew where to find one. How do you guys remove old staples from hardware you are replacing without hurting the wood too much?

 

[rookie08]

I just bought one of these (see below) at Woodcraft to get a ton of staples out of several hundred feet of trim.  Guy at Woodcraft says he's never had one returned and all he hears are good things about it.  Been using it all day and it it works great!

Nail Hunter Nail Puller
Item #149982

Cheers!

 

[harry_]

I just use a little flat bar (moulding puller) available @ the borg (looking for a link)

 

[MarkF]

I had a few thousand staples to pull up after removing the carpet and pad in our home before refurbing the floors.  Believe it or not the $3.00 Harbor Freight staple remover did a great job.  Much easier than anything else I tried and no broken off sides left in the floor.
http://www.harborfreight.com/heavy-duty-professional-staple-remover-66732.html

 

[HowardH]

Hey, I like that one from HF!  Heck of lot cheaper than the Woodcraft version. 

 

[fdengel]

I'll second the Nail Hunter -- one of the most amazingly useful hand tools I own.

 

[MarkF]

Oh...It's "Heavy Duty Professional" too [big grin].  For the broken sides and pin nails gone wrong I also love my "Extractor"
http://www.hartvilletool.com/product/12140

 

[Rob-GB]

Can I put forward the motion that all use of metal staples in timber and timber products be banned worldwide. [ban] all of them.

Then we will no longer need tools to remove them, catch ourselves on broken off ones ( may I remind you all that blood is not a good finishing stain on any project) or damage tooling on those ridiculously thick ones timber merchants attach plastic and paper ID tags with. Just think of the time savings! [eek]
As for the proliferation of the little devils in carpet underlay.......always thought those carpet fitters were an odd bunch ;D

Rob.

P.S. That Harbour Freight jobbie would be a welcome addition to my kit, normally make do with my Leatherman Surge.

 

[MarkF]

As for the proliferation of the little devils in carpet underlay.......always thought those carpet fitters were an odd bunch ;D

Rob.

or the pad installers get paid by the staple.

 

[Rob-GB]

As for the proliferation of the little devils in carpet underlay.......always thought those carpet fitters were an odd bunch ;D

Rob.

or the pad installers get paid by the staple.

sheeesh! They must get paid at a rate lower than the cost of one staple judging by what I had to deal with two months ago! [eek]
I suppose if you pay less than peanuts even the monkey will not bother to turn up! [laughing] [laughing]

 

[HowardH]

So I drive over to the local HF store and the guy there tells me they haven't carried that product in the store for months.  [scared] [scared] [scared]  I made my way over to Sears and they had a mini, and I do mean mini, pry bar thats about 3/4" wide and 6" long.  It should work.  If it doesn't I'll look into getting the thing at Hartfield tools. 

 

[tbellemare]

Howard:

It's not ideal but I use a pair of diagonal pliers and it goes pretty fast. Also, if you break a staple you can pull out both ends easily.

Tom

 

[harry_]

Oh...It's "Heavy Duty Professional" too [big grin].  For the broken sides and pin nails gone wrong I also love my "Extractor"
http://www.hartvilletool.com/product/12140

I keep my second one of these in my pouch.

Apparently, someone liked my first one more than I did

 

[Tim Sproul]

I use a small cat's paw.  You need one for nail extraction anyways.

And sometimes the staples are seated flush or just below the surface.  A few judicious taps with a hammer and you can remove those staples with little damage to the work or subfloor.

 

[Kodi Crescent]

I've used angled needle nose pliers to pull up flooring staples, but it looks like one of those staple pullers would have worked just as well, if not better.

 

[Sparktrician]

I use one from Bostitch that I got a whole bunch of years ago for pulling staples from paper.  It's all-steel, and not the current, made-in-China junk with the plastic handle that always seems to break or fall off.  Obviously it won't work for nails or broken-off staples, but when I can slide it under the staple's crown, the staple is doomed to come out, and there's very little damage done to the wood under the staple.  If the staples are on the long side, once I get the crown out, I can grab the staple by the legs with needle-nose pliers or diagonal cutters and the rest is easy. 

[smile]