stud walls

[John Rumm]

the nail almost

They have a swept magazine, so you can rotate them a bit in the 90 degree "space" as well...

Yup they are to produce the ignition spark. Yes they are rechargeable, but even rechragables only have a limited life before they no longer hold enough charge and need replacing.

you need a small

You can usually pick up one for a bit less on ebay. A £100 compressor will do the job (and has other uses)

The nailer or the compressor?

Well normally I have the compressor in the garage (which is adjacent to my workshop). Typical jobs in the garage are tyre inflation (car, bike, mower, anything else!), and driving an impact wrench occasionally. In the workshop, the most common uses are with a blow gun for dusting, cleaning etc (and inflating inflatable things!), and running a small 18 gauge brad nailer, which I use for a variety of furniture making and restoring projects. For example fixing T&G backs to things like:

also use it with a spray gun - again for wood finishing usually. One day I will probably get a decent airbrush for detail and touch up work.

For other jobs like resurrecting the remains of a wooden shed that we acquired when we moved in, a long airline reached it (nailed all the shiplap planking back on with a framing nailer (£90 on ebay) and 2" nails.

For jobs away from base, then its not actually that difficult to shift a small compressor if required (certainly no worse than a sliding mitre saw and workstand for example - and those are quite handy for studwork walls as well!)

;-)

Typically air tools need a bit of lubrication. In the case of a nailer, then you can do this by putting a couple of drops of oil down its air inlet after each use (or every so often if under heavy use). Alternatively you can use an inline oiler. This adds a very small amount of oil vapour to the air stream. These come in the form of small units for attaching to an single tool:

bigger ones designed to fit to the output of the compressor (or in the air distribution system if you have one) like these:

[Fred]

Thanks everyone for your replies and help.

I'm not sure I could justify buying a framing nailer for one wall but I think air nailers sound very useful and I could have an air impact wrench to remove the car wheels like they do at the garage!

Some posts mentioned making your own shed using an air nailer; I'd like to try that one day. I see you mentioned a smaller, brad, nailer. I would quite like to try and make some furniture one day. Once I've got the house sorted, perhaps I'll find time. The bookcase looks beautiful. Do you recommend any books, web sites, magazines to learn more about furniture making?

Thanks again,

[John Rumm]

No, probably a bit excessive...

A good second fix nailer might be more useful generally - they will usually stick in nails up to 2". Would make a quick job of cladding a shed.

The small nailers I like since they can stick a pin in in circumstances where it would otherwise be quite hard. One day I might treat myself to a small nailer or pinner with a mar free nose (i.e. one that can't mark the wood)

The nailer is not a must have bit of furniture making kit - routers and table saw probably come first, but they can be handy for assembly jobs.

Thanks, I was quite pleased with them. Have one either side of the bed fixed to the wall now.

I asked that very question in here a few years ago. I will repeat what the late Andy Hall said to me at the time since it has proved to be true. There are a couple of mags worth having. Woodsmith and Fine Woodworking. Both are US mags. Woodsmith has a range of very well detailed projects (typically 3 an issue) that would be within the capabilites of most woodworkers to knock out. You may not want to actually make any of the projects, but they are a good source of ideas and design info as well as different techniques. Fine Woodworking is more of an illustration of what it is possible to do with wood - rather than anything you are necessarily going to knock out yourself (at least without a few decades practice first!). They also have a web site with lots of content - much they want paying for, but there is some very good free stuff as well.

e.g.

[Fred]

Thanks for all your help. I can't resist an excuse to buy a new tool. Watch out for a new thread asking more about air tools ;)

[Fred]

Thanks. I shall look into getting one or both of these. I hope international shipping doesn't make the subscription too expensive, or do you read an online version? What a pity there aren't any home-grown magazines. I had seen a couple of woodworking ones in WHSmiths, are they not rated by folks here?

[John Rumm]

I managed to blag getting both as gift subscriptions in the end ;-) (saves the giver having to think of a present each year!)

They are not to bad price wise - although they do have a good content to advert ratio (in fact woodsmith carries very few if any ads at all). Woodsmith is about $28/year normally or $36/year with postage to the UK.

They both have extra online content - some free, some at extra cost.