I’ve been nicknaming my tools for a long time. There was the sledgehammer named “Sluggo” for obvious reasons, the angle grinder dubbed “My new best friend” because it got me out of a jam and there were others I simply can’t recall.
None of them, however, match up with the Stanley FatMax Fubar 55-099 demolition tool. Loaded with double entendre and rough-stuff-toughness the tool bears out its namesake.
This one-piece forged steel bar is smartly designed for heavy-duty demolition—and delivers the mass and meat for weekend projects. The tool’s head alone tells part of the story: the aggressive claw is a take-no-mercy piercing tool for getting behind trim, plaster, drywall, bead-board, siding…pretty much any cladding I’ve seen on a house.
The wide-open jaw delivers two functions. If you’re ripping down plaster and lath or stripping trim, it enables you to get enough steel behind the work surface to take a big bite out of it compared with other bars I’ve used. But it also enables you to capture a joist or stud between the upper and lower mandibles. This means when I need to twist a hunk of framing free—often the only way—now there’s a tool to do it with.
On the other side of the head is a totally innovative feature that lets me know the Stanley tool designers watch how we work. It’s a hammer-head. While I’ll use a tool like this primarily for prying and twisting, I like knowing that I can smash and pulverize stuff like brick, block, stone or mortar with this no-mercy hunk of forged steel. Unlike a nail-hammer, the FuBar’s head has the mass and the tool-length I need to make sure I’m the last man standing.
The nail puller on the foot I use mainly as a lance for getting all the other stuff the head doesn’t reach—lath at the top and bottom of a room, an old switch box between studs, behind or under cabinets, shelves, or to bust out an old door jamb or get under some roof shingles. Meaty tines mean I can drive the tool into all kinds of claddings and between framing members without a worry in the world. I can also use it as a lever, say for holding up the free end of a door I’m working on (and you didn’t think I could work a demolition tool into trim work…ye of little faith.)
And, it’s ideal for punching a rock or root out of a post hole. Need to stake down a tarp? Drive this bad boy into the earth. Go ahead…it aint afeard a you and your hammer.
In fact, it aint afeard a nothin’. If your name was FuBar, would you?
Bottom line: FuBar is a tool anybody can use and anybody can find a use for from pro-grade rack ‘em and stack ‘em demolition to weekend projects that require the meat and muscle only a smartly designed, tough-stuff tool can deliver. That’s what Stanley calls the FatMax advantage.
