flooring nails???

[Geo]

I will soon be embarking on a wood flooring project and am curious as to what you all recommend for flooring nails. The floor itself will be

3/4 tongue & groove sitting atop 3/4 sub floor. It's not a large area, perhaps only 90 sq ft. Since I am rarely able to dedicate any meaningful amount of time per day to such projects it will likely take me a couple of weeks of working here and there when possible. Therefore, I probably won't do the several rentals of a pneumatic nailer and need to resort to the savage caveman ways of a hammer and countersink. Thanks.

Geo

[Doug Payne]

I was in this boat this past summer (which seems to be now over, sigh), albeit for slightly larger area of about 200 sq ft. I just went out and bought an inexpensive 2" flooring stapler. Cost me $179 CDN on sale; I already had a suitable compressor. (That's about $150 US). Worked like a charm. I'm sure the pros wouldn't touch something of this quality with a

10-ft sledgehammer, but it did the trick for me, with nary a hiccup. I've now passed it on to my daughter and son-in-law and by the time we're all done with it it'll have easily paid for itself in terms of a couple of rentals. It's similar to this one (mine came from Princess Auto):

you should ask around in your area to see if anyone has one you could borrow? Just the mere thought of hand-nailing even half of what I did makes my knees ache. I'd have been walking like a caveman on my knuckles, after that.

[Duane Bozarth]

You need a flooring nailer--it doesn't have to be pneumatic but it's the only way appropriate. That much can be done in an afternoon--wait until you have one and go rent the nailer.

[Frank Boettcher]

I think the project will be very difficult without a nailer. unless you are very good, I suspect that you will break off a lot of tongues.

I rented a Port-a-Nailer,manuel, not pneumatic and my son and I put in about 220 ft. in about five hours. we alternated pounding the nailer and kicking the boards in place. Hardest part was that the nailer jammed every now and again.

Even if you have to rent it a couple of times the rental in my area is just $20/day. They have a pneumatic asist unit for $40, would've probably sped up the job.

[Sum Yung Guy]

I see the issue. If you want to work a little each day then renting isn't practical.

If it were me, and cost was an issue, I would buy a floor nailer/stapler used (like on ebay or the local newspaper), use it until the project is done, and then sell it to recover the money.

If you buy a tool used and keep it looking good you can usually get most or all of your money back selling it when you are done. If you get lucky you can sometimes make a few bucks.

[Duane Bozarth]

...

But 90 sf? That's only a few hours' effort at the outside.

[bridger]

it is for someone with a good back and knees. if the 90 Sft. is 3 floors up and the wood and saw are in the basement ....

[Duane Bozarth]

Then take them up...if you don't have a portable saw, then either rent one or use a hand saw. For that size an area (less than 10 x 10 ft), it's simply not a problem imo.

W/ a floor nailer, the amount of time actually on one's knees is reasonably minimal....

[Scorp]

I lived too long on my fir 3/4" ply subfloor, went to put down the oak flooring and those nails went through the oak and stopped at the compressed fir ply...took the nailer back to the rental place and got a stapler, that was way worse, those wire staples just buckled...

So I laid about 1000sf by hand, wasn't really bad, wife selected and predrilled the oak, I nailed and set... Steve Jensen Abbotsford B.C. [e-mail] chopping out the mortise. Surfing along at 19200 bps since 95. BBS'ing since 1982 at 300 bps. WW'ing since 1985

Nothing catchy to say, well maybe..... WAKE UP - There are no GODs you fools!

[Geo]

What kind of nails did you use?

[glw82664]

Regarding the original question though, what kind of nails did you use?