Dumb Air Nailer Question....

[Greg Johnson]

I have a framing nailer, 15 gauge finish nailer, 16 gauge finish nailer and an 18 gauge finish nailer. It seems there is a nailer for all applications. I seldom use my hammer..... and my arthritic elbows are thankful for that :o. A good air nailer just does a much better job. However, there is one application that seems to be missing. I am finishing a nice custom fence. I see most people use clipped or round head nails. Call me anal, but I don't like the look of a nail or screw head in a nice fence or deck. 20 years ago, I built a clear cedar deck and fastened it with 10d galvanized casing nails and set every head. It still looks great today. I am looking at having to fasten my fence the same way..... by hand. :( Why aren't there any 10-12 gauge finish nailers available. It seems like such a logical application. What am I missing here? :confused:

Greg

[Jon McElwain]

You might try one of those palm nailers like this one:


http://www.dewalt.com/us/products/tool_detail.asp?productID=11119

[Robert Reece]

What you want to do is called craftsmanship. Most guys I see with a nailer don't look like craftsman to me. They look like they need to get these 100 pieces of wood stuck up in a vertical position for at least 30 minutes. :eek:

Seriously, they probably wouldn't sell many of these guns. Everybody would wonder what is wrong with 15 ga finish nails.

Why don't you want to use 15 ga stainless nails? The heads are quite small, although they may not hold. Or better yet, hire somebody to help and they can drive the nails most of the way,then you can set them. That should save your elbows for the part you really care about.

[Greg Johnson]

Whew.... I didn't think I would get bashed in the power tool forum for using a nail gun :confused:..... I built my home and cabinets all by hand. I have hand set way more nails than I have shot. Now that I have these nail guns, I really like using them.... because it takes my "craftsmanship" to a new level. I really like to hold a piece of wood in place and shoot a nail and know it's not going to move. There are many advantages to using nail guns and I have seen some very talented "craftsmen" use them. I was just curious why there is this "hole" in the technology. It seems like a large gauge finish/casing nail gun would be a useful item. I was just wondering if there was a technical reason why it couldn't be done, or if anybody had any creative workarounds.

Greg

[Jon McElwain]

Greg I'm with you on getting bashed for using power tools in the power tools forum! Poor form! There are plenty of projects worth doing with traditional methods, but putting up a fence to keep the dog in or so the neighbors don't look in your windows is not one IMO. Anyway, just built a fence and the best advice I can give is to make sure that whatever nails you use, make sure they are okay with pressure treated lumber (if you end up building the frame with PT lumber).

[Ken Fitzgerald]

Folks,

I don't see an attack or implied attack.

What I do see is IMHO a mistaken view that nailers degrade or imply degraded quality of craftsmanship.

I sure don't agree with that. There are somethings I can attach using a nailer that would be a lot more difficult without using a finish nailer.


Back on topic.

Greg,

I would suspect that too small a market for larger nailer is the only reason to not have them.

[Greg Johnson]

Ken,
Thank you for your response. Quite honestly I am not sitting here with hurt feelings by Roberts comments. It really is a great debate that has been visited many times at SMC. I did find it kind of humorous that he would pick the Power Tool forum to take his "craftsmanship" stand. I started a thread in Boat Building http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?t=105981 (http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?t=105981)that went into the difference between craftsmen today and years ago. My premise is that technology has gotten in the way of ingenuity. My father and grandfather had to rely on their ingenuity more than technology to get the job done. For us today, the solution more often than not, is a technical solution with a new tool that makes life simple (except for large gauge finish nailers....:rolleyes:). I am not saying this is good or bad... just a fact of today. We don't have to push the "ingenuity" brain cells like our forefathers did..... or maybe we just push them in a different way....

Back to the nailer..... For me personally, I have gone through a ton of 10d and 16d finish nails in my life. I am kind of amazed there isn't a greater demand.

Greg

[Ken Fitzgerald]

Greg,

I will pretty much agree with you.

And now for the rest of the story. Back on the 4th of July, I gutted our master bathroom. I finished painting it 2 weeks ago, at which time the LOML ordered carpeting for it and our masterbedroom. Then she informed me she intended to paint the bedroom. I finished painting the bedroom this past Saturday. Our bathroom originally had carpet coving going up the wall about 4". It turns out nobody carries or can get the plastic trim for it. So....Monday I ran to a nearby lumberyard and purchased some baseboard. Monday I cut it. Tuesday morning I primed it. Wednesday I put the first coat of paint on it. This morning before work, I put the 2nd coat of paint on it.

And now I'm debating manually nailing it or bringing my air compressor out of the shop, into the house so I can use my finish nailer. There are some places where I can't get a good swing with a hammer but I can get my finish nailer in there and be done with it.:o

[Robert Reece]

Ok, you guys took my post the wrong way. :confused:

The giveaway in my opinion was the opening to paragraph #2 "Seriously". The first paragraph was mostly written in jest, then I gave you the answer that you were looking for. The guns aren't made because the perception is that 15 ga finish nails do everything that a big hand driven finish nail can do (note I said perception, not reality). So when a "craftsman" is shopping for a nail gun, he would wonder why he should want to shoot a 10 ga finish nail at 3x the cost. He'd buy the 15ga and just shoot a few more nails. Guys like you, who understand the difference, are 1 in 500 or more.

I own many nail guns (framing, finish, pinner, stapler) and use them on various projects. Many great, great craftsman use these guns for stuff that is better than anything I could build, including many members here.

Sorry for the offense and I hope your fence project turns out nicely, whether air nailed or hand nailed. There is something though about hand nailing and setting that just feels good.

[Ken Fitzgerald]

It felt good to me to get the baseboard nailed up in my bathroom. I hauled my 26 gallon a/c out of the shop and up near the bathroom window. I opened the bathroom window, removed the screen and passed the hose through.

5 minutes later I was finished installing the new baseboard except for touch up painting of the nails.

The a/c is back in the shop and I'm a happy camper. The wife is a happy camper.

[Greg Johnson]

Robert,
No offense taken..... and yes.... I don't think that a bunch of 15 gauge nails can take the place of a properly placed galvanized 10d casing nail. I guess I'm gonna have to go find my nail sets and dust off my hammer.

Ken,
I will never forget the first time I did baseboard with a nail gun..... Sheesh... It just seemed like cheating!:D

Greg

[Ken Fitzgerald]

There is so little clearance behind the new toilet I installed, I don't care if it was cheating or not.......I could not swing a hammer back there.

Seriously, even though I had to haul the a/c out of my shop and into the backyard, it took less than 10 minutes.....an no nail setting required.

15 gauge is what I have and I also have a new pin nailer my Boss at work gave me. I haven't tried it yet.

[Greg Johnson]

Ken,
My favorite "blind nailing" story is when I did a small addition to our second story bedroom. There was a unique area that I had to fasten a ceiling joist to a rafter and plate. I had to lay on my belly, slide out to a very cramped area, reach in and fire a few nails with my framing nailer right next to my head.... You can guess the rest of the story. It only took one nail for me to realize that I needed ear protection and maybe a helmet for this job.... But the reality was, I never would have been able to swing a hammer in that tight space, so it was worth the pain (after I climbed out and got my ear muffs).

BTW, I picked up a nice recon Bostich 18 gauge that I found here at SMC for only $33. http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?t=122891 I see it's $37 now. That's still a great deal.

Greg

[bill mullin]

As Robert alluded to, there isn't much demand for them.
In a typical new home, large casing nails are only used to nail thru brick mold on windows and exterior doors. And thats only if they use wood brickmold. Most homes now use clad windows that are nailed thru flanges with roofing nails. Even when wood trimmed windows were common, carpenters only used a few nails per unit, maybe 4 per side and 2 across the top. An entire house might use less than a hundred of them.

Back before the borgs began selling air nailers, you could only find them at specialty tool shops. You had Bostich, Senco, Paslode, and Duo-Fast mainly, and the shops were in the business of selling nails, really. That is where they made their money. If you would commit to buying, say, a pallet of nails, you could often get a good discount on the nailers, or even get the nailer for free.
There just aren't that many large casing nails to be sold, so why stock them.

As to using them for fencing or decks, fences maybe. But I wouldn't feel comfortable with them for decks. It would be a hard sell to builders who are used to seeing screws.

[Ken Fitzgerald]

Greg,

My favorite personal "nailer/stapler" story. I graduated from HS in '67 and I was only 17. I job jumped for 18 months until my 19th birthday at which Uncle Sam sent me an invitation I couldn't refuse. Well actually, I did refuse it by enlisting in the Navy.

One of the jobs I had was as a draftman and later doing time studies in an upholstery factory where they manufactured upholstered chairs. When they had a cutback, I was the most junior, unmarried, no dependents person in the engineering department and I got cut. Later they offered me a challenge. They wanted me to come back and work on the assembly line and prove to the union labor that the time studies I helped create could, in fact, pay 8 hours for 8 hours of labor. I accepted the challenge and went to work in the framing department building chair frames. On 2 different occasions, I had a pneumatic stapler misfire, stapling my the first two fingers on my hand to a hardwood chair frame. The first time got me a trip to the ER. The 2nd time I just took a pair of diagnonal cutters..cut the head off the staple ..slid my fingers off the staple......a little salve and a bandaid and back to work. Luckily for me...both times.....the staple managed to work its way around the bones in my fingers.

[Jon McElwain]

Robert, Thanks for the clarification! I hear you on the basecoard - in my last house I did two rooms with baseboard, pine wainscoting, top rail, and crown all by hand - I didn't own an air nailer or air compressor for that matter! I had to pre drill each hole to avoid splits. I got a clue and bought a compressor and some good quality air guns and finished in a fraction of the time and with smaller holes and tighter joints! Yeah for air guns. As for inginuity, my father in law has proven to me that you can still think outside the box and make it easier, even with the wide variety of technology available to the simplest of handymen!