[TowerTalk] rotary or demo hammer for ground rods

[Wilson]

Some guys here went together to buy the big Harbor Freight demo hammer.
I’ve chipped off some granite with it, but it was slow.
One of the guys made a female socket for driving rods and it’s fabulous, as fast as you’d want to go.
BUT it’s HEAVY, 70 lb, I think.  At our age, it takes two of us to work it high, as required for ground rods!
We use it every FD for a dozen ground rods and numerous pins to hold down tower bases.
All great.  We take it around on a garden trailer, with a generator or in a pickup.
We also have a farm jack and adapter to pull rods, but this year I pulled with my old Ford tractor.
It’s astonishing how hard it is to pull even 3-4 ft of rod out of firm dirt!  Rebar is worse.

One guy bought the next smaller hammer and I think it’s fine, especially on 4 ft rods.
Having SDS is very good, since you can do awesome rotary drilling.

WL