Air Nailer Q (& Introduction!)

[Tom Donalek]

Hello - ! For better and for worse, I swung by the 'orange Borg' and squandered some Christmas gift cash (and a gift card) on the PC compressor/nailer combo with the 16ga/18ga/stapler 'guns'. The impetus was (lack of) progress on a Christmas present - an overly complicated MDF book/display shelf unit for my little sister's new apartment. The big hangup has been sequential gluing and clamping, so being able to brad nail as I go (instead of clamping and waiting) is speeding things up.

I guess I could have posted this in the Christmas present thread, since it also became a good introduction thread! (Dear photo police - this is a dull item - please see the PC website. My other big WW gift was from the bestest girlfriend in the world - the PC 557 biscuit joiner. She may expect a new desk to be made with it though...)

I'm impressed, but I suspect my neighbors are more impressed - with the compressor noise! Along with Stu, Tyler and Per, I'm a big city wood butcher. I live here in 'the inner city' in Chicago in a three flat, with a 'shop' in the basement. (I'm actually envious of Stu's dungeon!) I ran the compressor out in the detached garage, and ran the hose into the basement. The garage is an uninsulated wood frame building. (Between the rats and the folks who break in to the garage every so often, the compressor can't stay out there permanently, so our below freezing weather isn't an issue) I could faintly hear the thing running in the basement with the door closed! (but not with my hearing protection.) I'm worried that the neighbors might be able to hear it through their brick walls - no late night nailing for me!

So my big question is - there's a bottle of oil in with the nailers. The 'online bookstore' reviews mention using the oil, but not much detail. I looked through the instruction manuals before using them, but I don't see anything about the oil. What the heck do I do with it? Where does it go on the guns? Thanks!

[Ken Fitzgerald]

Tom,

1st Welcome to the Creek!

I just looked at the manual for my PC pin nailer. Under daily maintenance it says to put 5 or 6 drops into the air inlet of the tool.

Again....Welcome to the Creek!

[Mark Rios]

5 to 10 drops a day in all air tools. In the air fitting. Except in some Senco tools. Some Senco are oiless.

[Vaughn McMillan]

Welcome to the Creek, Tom. I've recently acquired a pin nailer and a brad/staple gun, and the instructions for both mentioned putting a drop or two or three in the air inlet of the gun before each day's use. Take that with a grain of salt considering my relative newness to the world of pneumatic fastening, but that's the way I understand how the oil's used.

I don't recall the model numbers, but I seem to recall a recent thread where the combo pack you got was well-liked. But I do wanna know why my girlfriend (the bestest in the world) is giving you a biscuit joiner. :eek:

Again, welcome, and I hope this helps -

- Vaughn

[Dick Parr]

Welcome to the Creek Tom. Unless you are going to try to run a grinder or sander off the compressor, the noise shouldn't be to bad only using it for the nailer's. Can't be much worse that normal city noise.

[John Bailey]

Welcome to the "Creek" Tom. I can't help with advice about the nailer, I still do it the old fashioned way. But, I see you've already got the answer to your question from the good folks here.

John

[tod evans]

welcome tom

[Mike Forsman]

Tom,

Welcome to SMC. I'm sure you will like it here. Great place to get information and a great group of people.

The oil provides needed lubrication for the internal moving parts of the nailer/stapler. I believe that 5 to 6 drops of oil would be to much for the size of nailer/stapler that you have. If you are like me and only do WW on evenings and weekends, and only drive a handful of nails/staples, then I would think that 2 to 3 drops would be enough (thats what I put in mine). Keep in mind that many of these tools are sold to professionals that use the tool all day every day and may drive a box of nails/staples, so they would need to oil the tool more than that. Quite a bit different from the usage that a causal woodworker would provide. Also, if you get too much oil into the gun, it will blow the oil out the exhaust port. In my experience, the oil will blow all over the wood that you wanted to put a good finish on.

I have a small compressor that I use when I'm working a long distance away from the big compressor and I don't have a hose long enough to reach. While it is produces a lot of noise, it is not too loud. In addition, it does not run all of the time. It should cycle on and off. I would not expect that the noise from your compressor would be much of an issue in relation to normal city noise. Around here I can hear some folks car music systems when they are a block away. That does not even cover noise from weed trimmers, lawn mowers, etc.

[Tyler Howell]

Welcome Don,
The neighbors are just going to have to get use to it. Or get a better shop sound system. 200 watts of pure music power will drowned out any shop compressor:rolleyes: .
Glad to have you skating with us:D .
You got some good advice here from these great folks.

[Jim Becker]

Welcome to the Creek, Tom! All compressors, unfortunately, have some noise level...necessary evil...especially the "oil-less" type. But like others have said, running your nailers shouldn't cause too much running unless you are doing target practice...not recommended, anyway! ;)

[Tom Donalek]

Thanks! I'm feeling a bit silly about my comment that "I read the instructions". Now that I know what I'm looking for, I see that the instruction to put 5-6 drops of oil into the air inlet each day. It's in TWO different places in the booklet (not counting the French and Spanish parts! "chaque journée placer 5 a 6 gouttes d'huille...") At least I paid attention to the warnings...

About the noise - Sure there is a lot of noise in the city, but some of it is expected (sirens, thumping car stereos, even gunshots unfortunately) - it's the out of place noises that get people's attention. So far, no complaints!