ROOF TOOF Slate Ripper roof Saw

Absolutely brilliant - a lot of slates on my garden shed were broken by a falling tree - this made removing them simple and quick - it’s not cheap, but it works

Simple but very effective at cutting through nails to remove slates or tiles and unlike a slaters ripper you don't risk splitting the roofing lats as you're not yanking at the nails. The basic premis is a couple of long flat bits of metal with a 12" hacksaw blade sandwiched in-between them and a handle on the end but the principle works. Hopefully the hacksaw blade will be interchangeable but I haven't tried pulling it out with pliers or something so I won't know until I do. All in all I'd definitely recommend as it's not fun having to strip half a roof because you've bust the lats using a slaters ripper

One thing I don't understand about this saw is why isn't the blade changeable? And since the producer already decided to screw its customers a bit, by making them spend another £33 when that short blade finally gets dull, why not at least make the whole shaft the thickness of the blade, so it's even easier to get under slates? Other than that I feel like it's an improvement over a slate ripper.

Slate roofs vary enormously and anything that prevents breakages pays for itself. Solar panels installations on slate roofs need many slates removed and this is quicker and more reliable on older roofs. New slates roofs may be a bit tight for a ripper and prising them back to loosen the nails often damages them but this device is thin enough to get in there. Ideal for less skilled diy user. Probably has other uses as well.

Good idea works ok but could easily have been designed to have a replaceable hacksaw blade

Time is money when working in a trade, difficult or tight slates can be an issue and drag on when trying get access or replace, the Roof Toof worked just as I needed it to on hard to get to slate nail and more so when people had used massive nails that would cause further damage if ripped the standard way. One should be in evey tool box.

If you’re using it on close fitting fibre slates it’s impossible to use on it’s own. It’s far too flexy to push far enough under the slate without it bending out of shape. You also need a slate ripper to “loosen up” by pushing it up under the slate to roughly where the nail is and prising laterally until there’s enough room to get the saw in. Even after you’ve cut through the nail and removed the slate you then need to cut the nub of the nail off before installing a new slate. Make sure you also have a ripper as you need both unless you’re dealing with very loosely fitted slates. Also .. Not convinced that it’ll last very long as I’m already having to “baby it” as it is.

I had two velux windows that had to be retrofitted on a fibre cement slate roof. With the roof toof, I was able to cut the galvanised steel slate nails to remove just enough slates to fit the roof windows. I did the whole job from inside the building. I was impressed with the quality of the hacksaw blade... after doing the two windows, the teeth feel just as sharp as when I started. The only slight issue I had is that when shoving the roof toof up under slates trying to find a nail, it was sometimes difficult because of the flexibility of it. If the gap under a slate was particularly tight, the blade would tend to flex. Still got the job done though.