15g or 16g gauge nailer for cabinet work

[Shawn Russell]

My wife and I are planning on building several cabinets and built-ins for bedrooms, kitchen, garage and the basement. I would prefer to just buy one and not both unless there is a massive compelling reason to do so. Thus, I would prefer to buy the best tool I can afford that will make my work easier and has the best build quality. I do not have a budget allocated but would like to stay under $300 which should be more than ample for any of the 15/16g on the market. And, if I can spend 90 bucks for a quality nailer I am sold; I am not brand loyal.

Aside from the fact that the 15g is usually at an angle and a slightly thicker gauge nail are there any other major differences that I should take into account?

I have a Grex 635 which has been a rock solid tool for the last two years. I do not see any good Amazon reviews for the Grex 15g and 16g nailers; are they of equal quality at the 635 and 650 pinners?

What brand do you have that you would recommend and which are the ones to absolutely avoid?

Thanks

[Matt Meiser]

Neither. I can't think of a single thing in my kitchen I used a 16ga nailer for. Used my framing nailer for some framing, used the 18ga nailer to install toekicks and blocking for crown, and used the pinner and glue to install the crown. No nails anywhere in the cabinets themselves. 16ga nailer has been used for (re)installing baseboard in various rooms and that's really it.

[John TenEyck]

I agree with Matt. I've never (yet) found a need for either of those guns in cabinet work. I use an 18 gage brad nailer when needed, which is not very often. I use a 23 gage pin nailer for attaching glued on moldings. And I use an 18 gage narrow crown stapler to attach cabinet backs - the ones I don't screw on. If I did a lot of door, baseboard, etc. trim work I would get a 16 gage nailer, mostly because it's the smallest size gun that uses a 2-1/2" nail.

The nails on a 15 gage gun have a semi circular shaped head on them, whereas brad nailers only have a little flair at the head. The 15 gage have more holding power but, of course, they leave a much larger divot, too. A 15 gage gun is a lot more massive than a 16 gage brad nailer, and the nails cost substantially more and I don't think you can even buy small quantities of them.

John

[Aaron Berk]

I POSITIVLY LOVE my Bostich 15ga angled nailer.

The nails are allot more expensive than the straight 16ga nails though.
I use it as my go to gun for case assembly and trim carpentry.

If your building case work with dado joints and you just need to pin it till it dries, get a 16ga or 18


The 15ga nailer is handy but never "truly" needed for cabinet construction.
If your doing detailed trim work, get a pin nailer that shoots up to 2".
If your building utility grade units, a 16ga will bang it out just fine. Passloads are hard to beat in the 16ga market.

[Greg R Bradley]

Here's another agreeing with Matt.........NONE. Maybe a 18ga brad gun or narrow crown stapler for production cabinets.

A lot of people bought the Grex P6xx series 23ga pinners and then made the mistake of buying another Grex product. Grex doesn't make any guns and only buys guns from the actual manufacturers and has some of the work done to their specs, like color. Grex finally had the same company, VIM International, that made the P6xx pinners make a 18ga gun, which is the 18GB. I assume it is OK also. Pretty much negative reviews on all the other Grex guns.

18ga is big for cabinets, probably the only one you MIGHT have any use for. Straight 16ga is huge but is actually still a brad even though called a nail. 15ga angled IS a nail and is used for holding door and windows into framing. Can't imagine what you would use that for in a cabinet.

If you must buy something, how about a Kreg Pocket Hole kit?

[Alan Bienlein]

I wouldn't be without my 16 ga. nail gun for assembling cabinets and or fine furniture. As long as you can hide it what does it matter? It sure is cheaper and faster than some other methods of assembling cabinets and yields the same strong results.

For assembling raised panel doors I'll use my 18 ga. nail gun with 5/8" brads. Clamp the door up and shoot two in each corner on the back side and release the clamps.

[Larry Browning]

I think what I would do is get a nice 18ga brad gun, one that will shoot up to 2 1/4" brads. PC makes a pretty good one, paslode, bostitch, senco, are all good brands. This will be your work horse used 90% of the time. For the occasional heavier duty need like attaching baseboard or anchor plates etc., a cheap 16ga gun will work fine. Grizzly sells these, or even Harbor Freight. I have a Grizzly 16ga nailer that works fine for the occasional use it gets. You should be able to get both guns for around or maybe a bit less that the $300 you mentioned. Another option on the 16ga gun would be a used one. These show up all the time on CL and ebay.

[Sam Murdoch]

I'm in the 18 gauge is plenty big enough camp for cabinet building. Actually I use the straight 18 g for trim work (or, my favorite, the headless micro pinner) and then 18 g crown staples for plywood boxes - 1-1/4" & 1-1/2" . These are great for attaching 1/2" back to 3/4" sides or for holding the sides to the horizontals until I can drive in screws. I don't go crazy with the crowns as I prefer building boxes with screws but the crown stapler is a good tool in the cabinet shop from my experience. Try taking a plywood box apart that you have stapled together. Never can imagine needing a 16g or 15g nailer.

[John McClanahan]

An 18 ga. nailer seems to be a common recommendation. Just keep in mind, nailers that can shoot 2+ inch brads are larger and may not fit in tight areas like the small nailers. A good reason to own both. That's what I tell my wife.:D:D

John

[Gordon Eyre]

Like you I have a Grex pinner and love it. I also have three Bostich guns. A crown staple gun and two brad guns (small and large). I have never had problems with any of them.

[Rich Engelhardt]

I have and use both a 15 and 16 ga.
I also have a few 18 ga that shoot both brads and staples and a 23 ga pin nailer.

Plus, a framing nailer and a palm nailer - for those pesky fasteners that aren't pneumatic friendly (like ring shank nails).

I'd love to be able to list the times/places I've used them all, but, I honestly don't keep track.

[Lee Schierer]

Neither. I can't think of a single thing in my kitchen I used a 16ga nailer for. Used my framing nailer for some framing, used the 18ga nailer to install toekicks and blocking for crown, and used the pinner and glue to install the crown. No nails anywhere in the cabinets themselves. 16ga nailer has been used for (re)installing baseboard in various rooms and that's really it.


I agree completely. Despite the way Norm did it, I have no use for nails in my cabinets and furniture. I prefer glue and where necessary screws instead of filling in and sanding all the nails holes, which if you notice, never made the air on New Yankee Workshop.

[Peter Quinn]

Nails for carpenters, clamps for cabinet makers. Nails are not clamps. Screws are almost clamps, close enough to fool the wood in most cases. For me building cabinets involves mostly clamps and glue, some screws as clamps in plywood, pocket screws, but few nails. I find the pin nailer handy for small moldings, beads, etc. Occasionally an 18 ga brad is handy to tack a slippery assembly long enough to get the clamps on. Nails have shear strength, but offer little real clamping pressure, I've found I can break most nailed and glued joints with a little force. I work in a cabinet shop, we don't even have either a 15ga or 16 ga gun except for crown installs. So maybe get one for crown moldings and door casings? I own pc and bostich, have used senco and hitachi, all work fine. I have a crown stapler and find it occasionally very handy for a variety of wood working tasks but it sees little use for kitchen cabinet work if any.

[Bruce Wrenn]

My go to guns are 1/4" crown stapler, 18 ga brad nailler, and 16 ga Senco SKS. I have three of the Senco's, with different length nails in each. After 20 years of commercial use, two of the Senco's are ready for a rebuild.

[John McClanahan]

[QUOTE= instead of filling in and sanding all the nails holes, which if you notice, never made the air on New Yankee Workshop.[/QUOTE]

And I thought they magically disappeared, making him the master!:D

[Ken Fitzgerald]

It's subjective I would suggest. There is no right or wrong.

I use a Senco 15 gauge.

I have and use a 18 gauge......and a crown stapler....

[Shawn Russell]

Thanks for all the input.

Most if not all the cabinets I build for my home will be done with Kreg screws and taking the time to do glue-ups. I want a nailer to build cabinets for others. My wife and I work day jobs and are volunteering to build cabinets for others. I will not have the luxury of waiting 24-48 hours for a glue-up. I am expecting to be able to pull of a build within an 8 hour window. And for utility cabinets they will certainly also be built with a nailer.

[Paul Wunder]

18 gauge as most have said.

If you don't have a compressor, take a look at the new Ryobi 18V nailer at $129. Did someone say Ryobi? It got excellent reviews so I tried it so I don't have to schlep my compressor up and down the stairs or even set it up in my shop. I don't have a lot of use on it so far, but I like it. No compressor needed, no hoses, etc. I also own a PC gun and a pinner, but I think I'll be using the Ryobi more often because it doesn't require any set up

http://www.homedepot.com/p/Ryobi-18-Volt-One-18-Gauge-Cordless-2-in-Brad-Nailer-P320/203810823#.Ugn8623Jr-A

[Matt Meiser]

24-48 hours for a glue up? What glue are you using? The only glues I've ever used that required beyond maybe 60 minutes are plastic resin glues and those are way overkill for building cabinets.

Boxes--I rabbet/dado, glue and screw. Face frames I use pocket hole screws. I attach face frames to the boxes with glue, held by a couple pocket hole screws on each side and top/bottom (I always use end panels because I think it looks better. All that stuff stays clamped for 10 minutes max while I drill and drive screws. My experience is that building boxes is one of the fastest parts of a cabinetry project other than MAYBE face frames, but they require a lot more stock prep. And within the box-building phase, assembling the boxes as I've described takes significantly less time than cutting material to size, cutting rabbets and dados, drilling shelf pin holes, and any other prep (eg cutting notches for toekicks)

For boxes, I suppose you could substitute nails for screws but any racking force is going to pull them right out. And its been my experience that any nailer shooting long enough nails to do much good in a joint like that is likely to blow out a decent percentage (I'd find > 0 unacceptable) when the nail finds an abnormality inside the wood or plywood and follows that. I wouldn't trust a hanging box that wasn't screwed myself. I've heard a couple stories about factory-build glued and nailed/stapled boxes falling apart and doing major damage to the contents and what was below. One story, the person lost virtually every dish, a huge slab of granite and a dishwasher (cheaper to replace the whole thing than buy a new door).

If you want to save time building boxes, spend the money on tools that speed sheet goods cutting. On my last project, I built a large kitchen's worth of upper boxes in a 10 hour or so day using Festool gear to make all the cuts, a Kreg Foreman machine, and a line boring machine borrowed from a friend, and the techniques listed above. Face frames had been previously built and finished.

[Michael W. Clark]

I've only used 18 ga as well in woodworking, similar experience as Matt with longer brads. The short brads (5/8") are good for what Alan said on the panel doors. I built some shop cabinets with this technique. I've thought about a stapler for the backs, but just not sure what to get. When I built my wetbar cabinets, I used #6 screws on the backs that were rabbeted into the sides + glue. I'm just a hobbiest, not sure what the production guys use.

I have a straight 16 ga that is good for baseboards, crown, other large trim, light framing, etc. A pinner is great for smaller details. Depending on what you are doing, the pin holes don't have to be filled and are not noticable after staining/finishing.

My vote would be for a good 18ga and crown stapler and/or pinner. I've heard good things about Rigid and Senco. I have a porter cable and have been very happy with it as well.

[scott vroom]

All of our casework is assembled with glue and clamps...no mechanical fasteners involved.

We use 15/16 gauge for general construction finish work (crown/case/base).

[Jim Becker]

I don't use nailers much for cabinetry/carcass construction. I'll occasionally shoot a 15 gage nail or an 18 gage brad to quickly tack something for convenience, but the actual construction is done with glue and countersunk screws. Now if you need to do your build in-situ, then the nailer is going to be helpful, but the real strength is from the glue. For tacking face frames onto carcasses, I use a 23 gage pinner to hold things until the glue sets, sometimes with a few biscuits to assist with alignment.

[Jason White]

Buy a Kreg pocket hole jig and some clamps. You can make an entire kitchen's worth of cabinets using nothing but pocket screws and "maybe" some glue. You just have to be strategic about hiding the pocket holes (i.e. tops of cabinets, bottoms of cabinets, bottoms of shelves, etc.). Check out Kreg's website for some ideas. They have lots of videos and plans there. If you want to be hard core, get a tablesaw with a dado stack and glue/clamp your cabinets together. Or, buy a Festool Domino machine and do it all with Dominos. I wouldn't just nail your cabinets together, as but joints are weaker than all of my previous suggestions. I usually reach for my Kreg jig first, especially if I'm just throwing together something quick and dirty.

- Jason

[Ole Anderson]

Hey, all the home improvement (crash) shows build in-place cabinets with glue and a nail gun. So it must be ok, right? Personally, I have 2 nailers, a Stanley/Bostitch 18 ga brad gun for most work and a Bostitch 15 ga angle finish nail gun for casings. I may ask Santa for a 23 ga pinner though. Only time I use them on cabs is gluing and nailing the backs on (in a rabbit) where I will use a 1-3/8" 18 ga brad for 3/4" backs.

[John Hays]

Well for half the price I would just go to Lowes and purchase the Campbell Hausfeld 5-Piece Nailer Kit (http://www.lowes.com/pd_325598-43657-CHN90598DI_0__) for $137.40 (which I did last week)! That way you're prepared for any project that comes up. ;)

Perhaps not the best brand out there, but they seem to get pretty good reviews overall. And for that price, it's a no-brainer.

[Jacob Reverb]

I use an 18 ga brad gun from HFT for attaching mouldings (mine also shoots 1/4" crown staples which is nice for rough/utility work) and a 15 ga Hitachi for heavier work.

What's nice about the guns is that (for example) you can hold the moulding in place with one hand and then shoot it in place. No need for a bunch of clamps usually, and you don't get everything flopping around like you would if you tried to hand nail it. Cuts assembly time by half or even 75% in some cases.

The nails provide some shear strength, but most of your tensile strength comes from the glue no matter what, anyway. Thus you can think of the nails as "cheap clamps" that you don't have to remove after the glue sticks.

I wouldn't be without these tools. Once you have them, you wonder how you ever got by (or didn't go insane) without them.

Edit: If you get one for trim work, make sure it has the feature that when you pull the trigger, the actuator fires ... but it doesn't reset until you release the trigger. This way, you can move the gun away from the workpiece before you release the trigger. Guns that both shoot and reset the driver in one cycle can cause dents in the work piece because the tool gets driven against the workpiece by inertia when the driving mechanism resets. Most of them seem to have this feature now, but a few years ago, they didn't.

[Larry Browning]

So Shawn, have we given you a clear direction as to which nail gun you should buy?:confused:

[Jay Jolliffe]

I have the large Senco 15 ga finish gun, Bostich 15ga finish gun, Hitachi 18ga, Porta Cable 18ga, Senco 23ga pinner & Grex 23ga pinner.....they all have their uses also a Dewalt cordless 15 ga finish which I only use for pine or poplar because that's about all it can set the nail in....Wish I knew that before I bought it.

[Bill White]

16, 18, and 23 ga. nailers, 14" narrow crown stapler are in my shop. Never had a need for the 15 ga.

[Prashun Patel]

I am not as religious as the others about metal in my wood.

I think the 16 is a poor compromise between an 18 and a 15. If u need it fast and strong, get a 15. I think this is perfect for closet cabinets or painted cabinets that wont take a lot of weight.

For kitchen cabs, i agree with the others. They are too visible and bear a lot of weight. So use glue, pocketscrews, dados, dowels or dominos.

You might look into the jessem dowel jig. It is in your price range and will make you life easier.