Forgot about this. It may seem like there’s a big target to hit when you’re nailing a 2x4 wall together, but the target on the bottom plate is only about 1/2" x 2 1/2”. You risk splitting out the edges of the 2x4 stud or losing holding power outside of that. It is surprisingly hard to hit.
7.2 pounds?
Oh hell no.
7.2lbs vs a 22oz framing hammer. Which makes it 7.2lb x (16oz/lb) / 22oz = 5.2x heavier. He’ll need to get that weight down to make it practical.
No, the nail gun posted above is 7.2 lbs. The hammer is 25 oz. It would have to be cast lead to weigh that much.
Also, @Quartertonelow
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Roger that. My mistake.
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Thank you. I was gonna say that’s approaching sledgehammer territory.
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He does mention it works on wood but for the demonstration he chose foam, i can only assume because he wouldn’t need to use as much force. The hammer he had was mostly plastic, the real thing would have more metal (and mass) so it should go through wood no problem.
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“I will be the fist in line to buy this thing.”
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I’d assume they meant cooperative housing. (co-op’s ) but your take is far more interesting, so here’s to hoping! 
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Yeah, and that’s kinda what I want to see. What’s the mechanism for initially driving the nail? A titanium or otherwise metal head will pund the nail into wood, but what sets it in the first place? If it’s just the momentum of the nail itself, I have my doubts. If there’s a clever spring loaded mechanism, then I’m more optimistic. To be sure, this is a neat idea and I’m a strong advocate of independent inventors, so I want to see this succeed. It could be a real benefit to occasional craftsman and people doing home repair jobs. But I think he needs to hook up with someone at his local maker/hacker space and produce a fully functional prototype.
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I’m assuming there’s a secondary head that’s behind the first indexed nail that drives it forward while the rest of the cartridge remains in place. Presumably the “front half” of the hammer strikes the wood and either triggers the secondary head somehow or momentum carries the secondary head forward. I think the hammer strike on the wood wouldn’t be too problematic in a framing situation, but I couldn’t really say.
Starting around 14:00 in the video he actually takes apart the head. Watching now…
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I was thinking the “Cheney Nailer” was going to be a hammer that smashed your friend’s fingers instead of yours. Ah well. Still a neat old timey tool.
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OK, sounds like the nails are locked into the front part of the hammer. When the nail trigger is engaged, the front half and the back half of the hammer separate slightly, and on striking, the back half of the hammer continues forward when the front half of the hammer stops. The one nail is propelled forward by the back half of the hammer while the rest of the cartridge remains stationary with the front half. This results in a shear force between the first nail and the rest of the cartridge to separate it in the process.
The details are at about 18:30 (linked to the right time below):
This is a very clever bit of tool design, but I think it may have durability issuse.
Hammers on jobsites are not treated carefully. Prying nails out sideways, beating holes through cinderblocks, these tools take major abuse. Which works when the tool is one piece of steel (less so with steel head and wood handle).
I think the regular impacts of a hammer may damage this break-apart loading mechanism. However, perhaps some skillful engineering will prove me wrong. I would be interested on giving this tool a try, just to see if it works in the long term.
Believe it or not, I used to live in a coop. Like a chicken coop. Granted, it had been renovated into apartments and studio space, but still…
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Sorry, toss this idea in the dustbin of history as unneeded. If you’d like to stop smashing your fingers, simply hold the nail correctly: between two fingers - always with fingernails down - pads up so an inaccurate swing will result in a barely felt finger smash. A sideways fingernail strike is the worst, followed by a top of fingernail strike. A fingerpad strike is barely felt. Trust me on this one, it’s an old roofing/siding/drywaller move and those nails are much shorter so we should know.
I spent ten years swinging a hammer, and a tiny fraction of those hammer swings were aimed at framing nails. As others have noted, a hammer has about a million uses. Replacing it with a tool that’s far more limited in scope is not practical at all. The framers I worked with used hammers with nail notches. One swing to set the nail, one swing to drive it home, one hand.
Generally if I needed to accurately drive a nail in a space where I couldn’t fit a gun, I used a palm nailer or screws.
IOW, no, this ain’t goin in my bags.
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