Rock maple and 18 guage brads

[Bruce Darrow]

It has been a very trying day. I have been assembling 4 units made primarily of 1/2" thick rock maple. All butt joints, some in 1/4" deep dadoes. I was shooting both 1" and 3/4" 18 gauge brads with a Paslode gun, shooting through the faces, mostly into end grain, sometimes into an edge.

Time and again, no matter how carefully I aligned my shot, the brad would all too often deflect and blow out through the face of the piece being fastened.

Is it unreasonable to expect to be able to accomplish this task with at least 98%, if not 100% accuracy given the materials and tools used?

I will certainly rethink design next time, but I was quite happy with same going into the assembly phase.

What say you all?

[Dan Keeling]

Perhaps a larger gauge fastener would be less likely to deflect. 18ga brads have been known to go in random directions, even in softwoods, so asking them to stay straight in end grain maple is quite a challenge.

[Ruhi Arslan]

They also have tendency to bounce back off the knots to come back to surface to dive in under the finger nail to come out from the next digit. :o

I used an 8' long scrap hard maple to attach on a board to make circular saw guide to rip 4x8s. Screws were breaking off while tightening them.

[greg a bender]

I had the same experience this past weekend with Brazillian cherry and 18g brads. Caused all kinds of trouble going into miter joints. (sure hope Titebond II is strong!)

Darned frustrating. Finally used some <shudder> staples to affix the bottom. I think I need a new nailer that takes bigger gauge brads. Or try shorter ones. I was shooting 2" brads, because that's all I had on hand.
Interested to hear others thoughts as well.

[Peter Pedisich]

Bruce, take a look at how the brads are oriented in the gun, and make sure the 'chisel' tip is perpendicular to the grain, this may help.

Pete

[Will Overton]

Sometimes it's best to pre-drill and drive a brad with ... wait for it ...

A HAMMER

Then of course you go back with a nail set.:)

[johnny means]

your gun should be held perpendicular to the edge and not parallel to it. Brad nails bend sideways, but not forward or backwards.

[Ruhi Arslan]

I think that's what happened to me. I was holding the gun slightly angled towards my holding hand and the nail passed through the wood lodging on my thumb. Despite of the all the training and knowledge I had - do not remove objects lodged into the body - I yanked it out without even blinking. Yes, it did HURT!

[Bruce Darrow]

Fortunately a better day today.

Nothing to do with the units and problem that prompted the inquiry, but good progress on the overall project that the four problem units are a part of - does that make sense? I'm sorry, I'm tired.

Orientation of gun to workpiece(es) is something I will pay more attention to in the future, but I'm not sure it would have helped in this particular case - the units are somewhat small, and I may not have been able to orient properly anyways. As I said before, I'll rethink design next time I'm butt joining maple - or other hardwoods, for that matter. Predrilled and hand driven brads were considered after the problem first presented itself, as was/were screws, or heavier gauge fasteners, but for reasons I won't go into here, I elected to proceed as I did, and live with the consequences.

The overall results will be quite acceptable to the end users, just not up to my personal standards. I'm always looking to solve problems like this for the next time.

Thanks for your input.