So, Eric and myself took a trip to Home Depot to try to find a toolbox that might serve him well at the gun club, for carrying ammo and tools. We both slipped into man-monkey mode and started contemplating all the tools that we thought we needed but had no real use for. Enter Dead On Tools, they have a ridiculous hammer called The Annihilator, and it's advertised as the ultimate wrecking bar. Eric and I started thinking about the tactical applications of such a brutal tool. You hear about SWAT entry teams and soldiers in the desert using ridiculously priced custom axes and breaching tools, but the Annihilator can be found at places like Home Depot for about $30.00 USD!
Here's a picture of the beast I found at a great blog called "Soldier Systems" Click HERE to see this cool blog
So anyhow, another, smaller Dead On tool caught our eye, the Exhumer 8, which is touted as a nail puller, but it's essentially a 1 piece multi-tool, the uses limited only to the imagination of the user. The Exhumer 8 retails for about $20.00 USD, but Home Depot sells it here in WA, for about $10.00. I decided that evening that I had no use for such a tool. The very next day I found myself needing to open a very difficult box which is used to transport small animals like hamsters and gerbils. My Leatherman Kick was in the car, and there was no way in hell I was going to use the blade of my Benchmade Rift to pry this fucking thing open! The young lady I was assisting with this task instructed me to "step on the lid", and she would pull up on the edges. I informed her that telling a 350 lb. man to step on a box containing live animals was a stupid idea. I eventually used sheer finger and hand strength to remove the stuck lid. A pry bar would have been nice though. So today I went to my local Home Depot and purchased the Exhumer 8. I don't need it, obviously, but I'm pretty glad I have it. You can pull nails with it. You can use the forked end as a pry bar. I'd bet my left hand that it'd do a hell of a job as a window breaker in an automotive emergency too! The thing even has a bottle opener on the underside. There's a built-in saw wrench, and the Exhumer could easily serve as an effective hammer if needed.
I can't find any stats on how much the thing weighs, but it's not much, probably about a pound. This thing has obvious myriad self defense applications too. If you're a working class person, you could keep it in your car or tool bag and it'd probably go unnoticed. The forked straight end could be used to thrust or hit pressure points, and it's a safe bet that any aggressor foolish enough to charge a person wielding the Exhumer would be in for a rough ride. It could be swung like a hammer to strike an attacker with the claw end also. Anyone who has any knowledge of martial arts or human anatomy should be able to easily see the potential to stop aggression immediately.
I've read a few reviews of the longer Exhumer 10 online, seems that professionals using the longer Exhumer have had some bad luck with the thing breaking or snapping on them when pulling nails. I'm not too concerned for 10 bucks though. I'll keep the thing in my tool bag in my trunk for those rare instances when I feel a pry bar is needed for some reason. I can't find any info on any implied warranties on Dead On Tools, but if mine breaks under "normal" working conditions, I'll send a nasty email and attempt to get a replacement, as unlikely as that might be to happen.
All in all, I think this is a fine EDC "in-car" tool. It's not something that I'm going to tote around in my 5.11 shoulder bag, but it might be handy to have one in your vehicle or bug out emergency bag for the terrifying eventualities that can occur in daily urban and suburban life in America in 2008. It's a pry bar, it's an emergency window smasher, it could be an effective self defense tool. The Exhumer 8 nail puller is whatever you want it to be, and at an average warehouse tool store price of about 10 bucks, I don't think you really can go wrong if you buy an Exhumer.
Dead On Tools is HERE
Next time you go to Home Depot, check out the hammer section and you'll find the Dead On Annihilator, and the Exhumer in various sizes. I'm a sucker for marketing, and packaging. I'm pretty sure if this tool didn't have a little skull logo I would have passed right by it without a second glance. Kudos to the Bucket Boss family of brands for creating a line of tools to appeal to weirdos like Eric and me.
If I come up with any awesome new uses for this strange hunk of metal, I'll blog about it here. I may even go out in the yard tomorrow and see how the thing throws. With my luck I'll chuck it at a weird angle and it'll end up in the poison oak, or the saltwater bay! I have a feeling that this tool could be used effortlessly with Filipino knife and stick techniques found in Kali/Arnis/Eskrima. Alas, my uses for this chunk of burly black metal will probably be limited, though one day, it might just come in handy...
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