Light gauge nailers

[SammyInnit]

Hi all,

I'm after a nailer and I'm not sure which way to go. It's only going to get light to medium use in a home workshop so I did look at corded nailers such as the tacwise range but some reviews read better than others and I am a bit dubious to how long they'll last.

I looked at a cordless Makita 23ga which came in around the £300 mark bare so it's a bit more expensive. I don't mind spending if it's going to last and could potentially return a few quid if I come to sell.

Lastly pneumatic. I've got a compressor but not one with a receiver so I'm sure I'd have to get one with. My old man has got one that's 50L capacity that I'm sure he'd let me borrow for a while if I went this way but there are a wealth of brands and types.

Lastly am I looking at the right gauge? I've looked as mentioned at the Makita 23 otherwise I thought maybe 18. It'll be used mainly where clamps can't be while glue joints set or to do away with clamping altogether when trying to save time. Doubtful I'll be using any hardwood, maybe the occasional bit of oak, maple or sepele.

 

[Roger928]

Cordless nailers are contraptions that don't last.
Go air brad nailer.

 

[big-all]

i have had a ryobi 18v 18 gauge for about 10 years now never missed a beat fires 6-14mm staples and 3/4-1-11/4" nails [pins]
random picture
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=ryobi+18v...ai=http://racingwin.com/ebay-photos/233/1.JPG
recently bought the 16 gauge 18v ryobi air and its a cracking bit off kit the nails are about 3 times the material so a bit stronger but not up to heavy nailing just light nailing or heavy pining
23 gauge is extremley small

 

[SammyInnit]

23 gauge is extremley small

Yeah, after posting I think I might have misjudged how small they actually are

 

[big-all]

my main use for the 18gauge are 6mm cabinet backs or recessed drawer bases
also for t&g cladding on say the back off shelving units or blind nailing as a cladding into batons on walls and ceilings
i dont do much other than furniture with it but have made over 100 bits off furniture using it
i would not recommend a combined nail and staple gun for work requiring least amount off filling as the plunger is staple width with a notch for the nail head so to get the nail head flush leaves a couple off 0.5mm deep fang marks or iff you turn the depth down you need a tap with a hammer to get flush with the risk off bruising the wood
i also have an arrow 100 even older that doesnt bruise the wood but only does up to 25mm nails and dont do staples but was only £25 last time i looked about 10 years ago

 

[SammyInnit]

Ordered myself the Makita AF505 18ga. I think it should be about right for what I'm trying. Might also consider a crown stapler down the line.

Find a compressor is now the goal. Seem to be a lot of 'cheap' compressors around the 25/50l capacity mark over 9CFM. Will they last is the real question.

 

[Deleted member 174758]

Cordless nailers are contraptions that don't last.

Which is why my 11 year old 18ga deWalt is still going strong (albeit on its' third set of batteries) and why my 11 year old 16ga deWalt is also still going strong, albeit having been passed-on to another colleague whose much newer Hitachi gas nailer had bit the dust. My experience with the first generation DW guns is that they are far more reliable than gas nailers. I'm not alone in that, but boy are they heavy

To the OP - the Makita 23ga gun is only suitable for doing very small section beadings and small glazing beads. It is also a pile of junk, so AVOID! If you want a reliable 22~24ga pinner, go pneumatic and look for brands such as Grex.

18ga makes a far larger hole than 23ga, but the pins have far better holding power. DW cordless guns (1st generation) were reliable, and that the 2nd generation 16ga (Li-Ion) is just as good (the 18ga is brand new, so I haven't ried one yet) - and the 2-speed clipped nailer is a beauty plus reliable. They are larger than equivalent gas guns, though, weigh more, and are pricey.

TBH for workbench/home use I think you'd be better off with pneumatic guns, a small compressor and a filter/regulator/oiler combo. Lower cost, lighter/smaller tools. Just remember to drain the compressor between uses

 

[SammyInnit]

TBH for workbench/home use I think you'd be better off with pneumatic guns, a small compressor and a filter/regulator/oiler combo. Lower cost, lighter/smaller tools. Just remember to drain the compressor between uses

This is the way I've gone. Makita have made a new 23ga cordless pinner which a lot of people have said is leaps and bounds better than the older one but I couldn't stretch to the price tag when a decent compressor will have far more use and I could buy a few different nailers or staplers for roughly the same money as a cordless body. They won't be doing any site work anyway so portability isn't an issue as much as I hate trailing leads.

 

[Roger928]

Which is why my 11 year old 18ga deWalt is still going strong

Why exactly?
Mebbe you don't use it that much?
We go through high volumes of air gun nails. Like pallet loads in a few months.
Cordless battery contraptions are useless for non stop rapid fire bump nailing.
Mebbe OK for occasional use like you are doing. Like a few nails per day once a month.


One of the guys had a brand new dewalt battery nailer and it lasted a few months before requiring a lot of £££'s to repair it.
Dewalt wouldn't stand over the machine so its scrap.
It wouldn't have lasted a day in the workshop.

 

[Deleted member 174758]

Why exactly?
Mebbe you don't use it that much?
We go through high volumes of air gun nails. Like pallet loads in a few months.
Cordless battery contraptions are useless for non stop rapid fire bump nailing.
Mebbe OK for occasional use like you are doing. Like a few nails per day once a month.

Rollox! I'm site based and whilst I don't go through as many nails as a workshop, my usage (16ga and 18ga) on stuff like skirtings, architraves, flooring, etc is still respectable enough at times - and I tend to bump fire a lot on skirtings, especially when on price. In my experience (as well as that of quite a few colleagues) the reliability of the DW guns is better than many older designs of gas nailers.

One of the guys had a brand new dewalt battery nailer and it lasted a few months before requiring a lot of £££'s to repair it.

Odd, that. The DW guns are relatively easy to strip and repair for anyone with a mechinical bent (taught a few guys how to do it over the years). Just about the only things you ever need to replace on them are the rubber bungees (or in the case of the first fix models, the return springs) and occasionally the drive pins - which also shear from time to time on both gas nailers and pneumatics. We don't use pneumatics on site because they are extremely restrictive (we'd need to keep lugging them around all the time), the hoses are trip risks (as well as easily snagging and getting damaged in the environment) and thus an anathama to the HSE and safety officers and more to the point, insurers generally inisist on having an expensive tank pressure test being done at 12 month or shorter intervals. Personally I wouldn't have said that gas or cordless nailers werer suited to a production environment - in the same way that pneumatics are unsuitade to British site environments.

I have had 10 years or more of people spouting inaccurate and unknowledgeable twaddle about DW guns, often secondhand, on the odd occasioin when they were stoo next to me and I WAS USING THE TOOL! The biggest downsides to the DW guns are that they are larger than a gas gun and heavier, too, but if you can live with that and, like me, hate all the problems associated with gas then they have a place. The proof of the pudding is when you can use a gun to earn your living. Like many others I can

That said, for a home workshop low-cost pneumatics are sometimes a better option, providing that the user understands the need to oil pnuematic tools, to direct (oil-laden) exhaust gasses away from workpieces which are to be painted or lacquer-finished and most importantly how to maintain a compressor and hoses (including the all-important task of draining the receiver after each usage session)

 

[Roger928]

I'm site based

I'm site based and workshop based.
Wouldn't touch dewalt with a barge pole.

 

[big-all]

I'm site based and workshop based.
Wouldn't touch dewalt with a barge pole.

to be fair all manufacturers have there off days where a few bad uns get through and damage there reputation usually overall very unfairly
often its trying to manufacture down to make an old product seem good for the diy market without separating from the trade tools

 

[Roger928]

to be fair all manufacturers have there off days where a few bad uns get through

Its not about "off days".
Battery contraptions just don't cut it when put to real use.

 

[big-all]

Its not about "off days".
Battery contraptions just don't cut it when put to real use.

ok from those comments i assume you havent tried any brushless or indeed any new design battery tools developed over the last perhaps 5 years as battery tecnoligy has moved on in leaps and bounds with the power output perhaps nearing double and lighter into the bargains
if you take a battery tool on average as being say 40% as fast as a mains tool then on average the slightly slower progress is far outweighed by the ease off use and setting up
but as i say modern tools are nearer 75-100% as good as mains

 

[Deleted member 174758]

Hear! Hear! B-A. This old chestnut about cordless stuff (especially the nailers) appears time after time after time. I'm beginning to supect that Paslode is paying naysayers.....

I have and use a DW cordless 1st fix (2-speed) nailer and a 16ga angled nailer. I've used the PPN nailer and I'm considering the new 18ga. All were reliable, up to site work and easy to service/maintain. Battery life was more than acceptable (to me), but then I'm not a "proper" tradesman according to some..... The biggest downside, as I havr said, is that the DWs are heavy. The DW 1st fix kept going as fast a coiupls of brand new Passlodes (360s) last summer nailing 50mm ring shanks through 36mm of plywood at 100mm centres - the main difference is that the Passlodes both suffered from overheating and stopped from time to time, whereas the DW did not. Guess whicjh one drove the most nails? As to compressed air on site - almost anyone will tell you that the HSE don't like it, the insurers don't like it, most site managers don't allow it (especially on commercial builds), the hoses get in the way and dragging a compressor around is a royal PIA - which is why the vast majority of carpenters and installers avoiid it like the plague unless they are the sort of guys who install smaller stuff or work in domestics