What are the right size brads/nails for wooden fencing work?

[MisterBoy]

I need to get a reasonable stretch of wooden fence replaced and I'm considering a battery nailgun after seeing how quick it can make the job compared to screws/hammer. It's a 6' fence and doesn't need to be tough only visual screening so I favour fether-edge.
I have the Ryobi 16ga nailer and while it can handle 60+mm brads I'm pretty sure this is just too small for any full-height fence? It's the largest in their range but 16ga is 2nd fix, right? Or would it be OK?

But then a proper 1st-fix gun from Dewalt is hard to justify the price for one job - even if it saved me a full day. The one I saw does 50-9mm nails and I'm wondering if that is too long for a feather-edge fence... your rails are typically 38mm. It's a great excuse for a new toy I've drooled over for ages

 

[big-all]

i experimented with the 16g ryobi 2 nails in a "X" formation with 4mm off the heads sticking out then flattened so the heads bend over flat now off course it gripped better perhaps 3 times better than 1 nail but you could still pull the board off with the usual head hole in the board
now iff being very neat matters a lot off work for a poor ish finish and stainless nails are not that cheap

 

[MisterBoy]

I've used 16ga for a 3' fence and it seemed ok but yeah I could definitely pull the boards off if I wanted. That's not a problem here but are you saying they need to be stainless? I don't think my other fences are unless you mean because they're so thin they can't afford to rust at all?

 

[Diver Fred]

Depending on the arris rails and thickness of the weatherboarding (Feather edge) I'd be using 1&1/2 or 2 inch galvanised clout nails.

(in each board 1 nail in each arris rail at the thick edge leaving the thin edge free to move)

I do like to put capping on the weatherboards once erected.

 

[big-all]

they dont have to be stainless providing its to last perhaps 2-5 years where black stains and possible streaks down the panels dont matter but rust interaction with the wood oils [tannin]will decay the nails

 

[MisterBoy]

they dont have to be stainless providing its to last perhaps 2-5 years where black stains and possible streaks down the panels dont matter but rust interaction with the wood oils [tannin]will decay the nails

Yeah the big garden fence we had built 3 years back has those tell-tale stains but I think he used much thicker nails so more material to decay.

Looks like 16ga stainless brads are about £30 for 2500 which is basically a penny each. Even accounting for using more of them than proper nails that doesn't seem too bad when you're looking at what, a couple of quid per board these days?

 

[Deleted member 174758]

If you are being serious about fencing, Paslode do a gas nailer (the IM45) which fires a 25 to 45mm nail that is between the thickness of a 15ga and a true first fix nail. It has a drum magazine and can drive screw nails as it is a full head nail gun. The downside is price - AFAIK it is the only gas or cordless nailer of its' type so far, although there are a number of pneumatics out there which are similar.

16 ga is not sufficiently durable for exterior use - they rot through in next to no time and they lack pull out strength. Even 15 ga (which use thicker nails with much bigger head) are limited in application (to stuff like cedar cladding). Fences have to withstand wind and weather for many years which is why fencers often use proper nails (not pins) with full heads as opposed to clipped head nails

 

[MisterBoy]

If you are being serious about fencing, Paslode do a gas nailer (the IM45) which fires a 25 to 45mm nail that is between the thickness of a 15ga and a true first fix nail. It has a drum magazine and can drive screw nails as it is a full head nail gun. The downside is price - AFAIK it is the only gas or cordless nailer of its' type so far, although there are a number of pneumatics out there which are similar.

16 ga is not sufficiently dursble fir exterior use- they rot through in next to no time and they lack pull out strength. Even 25 ga (which use thicker nails with much bigger head) are limited in application (to stuff like cedar cladding). Fences have to withstand wind and weather for many years which is why fencers use proper nsils (not pins) with full heads as opposed to clipped heads

Maybe I can't justify my new toy then For shorter sections of fencing I've seen people switch to use screws quite a lot but no idea if they are good longer term? I'm fairly useless nailing things, not a skill I've ever needed to learn with power drivers making screws so attractive - I never even thought nailing took much skill until I tried doing a few jobs and spent most of the time dropping the nails or hitting my thumb!

 

[Deleted member 174758]

I'm a carpenter and joiner and even I smack my thumb occasionally (probably a lot harder than you do - I've lost thumb nails twice in 5 decades). Never been keen on screws for fencing. When I've done Norfolk fencing (i.e. double sided "hit and miss" palings) I've always used a pneumatic full head gun (mine's a 20 year old DW - pneumatc guns last forever if you oil them regularly and change the seals every 3 or 4 years - a low cost job - but good guns aren't cheap, ever) - AFAIK only Hikoki and Senco do full head cordless or gas nailers (Paslode offer an offset head nail to work in their clipped head 1st fix guns - but TBH I can buy full head nails at half the price and I don't need to pay for the gas - another £15 to £20 over the cost of the nails alone on every pack - hence the pneumatic gun), but the shortest nails for 1st fix are 50mm and the nails are about 2.7mm diameter, so they are too thick for lot of domestic-scale jobs. Hopefully the intermediate size guns (like the IM45) will become more common, but I see that taking a few years and I don't see the guns ever being DIY priced (although that said Ryobi haven't done badly with their cordless nailers)