I did that with 3/4" oak trim I made for the new door to my downstairs bathroom. That was a couple of months ago and...so far everything is as tight as the day I put it in place. I should mention that there are no children in the house. That could make a difference. :-) ____________________ Bill Waller New Eagle, PA
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Hello All -
Is there any reason I should'nt use brads for trim that is going to be installed around an interior door? The trim is the light weight waferboard stuff not actual pine. Seems like it should hold it just fine. Just for the hell of it, I tacked 2 pieces ofscrap 3/4'' plywood together using only one 2'' brad and I couldn't pull it apart without the help of a prybar.
Jim,
I used 2" long 18 gauge brads (in my Porter Cable brad nailer) to attach all the trim in our house. We have 5/8" thick cedar trim over 1/2" drywall, and I spaced the brads about every 16". We've been in our house about a year now with no problems whatsoever. All of the trim is very secure.
The brads leave much smaller holes in the trim than my 15 gauge nailer does. They're practically invisible unless you specifically look for them. If you plan to set the nails and fill with putty or something, the hole size won't make any difference.
Anthony
Actually, you dont need to double the Number of brads, you just need longer ones. Get some that are 2 1/16 inch long, or just go to a foreign country and buy a box of metric nails, which are always a tad bit longer. Of course, if you dont want to spend all the money to travel to a foreign country, you can just buy some cheap nail lengtheners on Ebay and make your nails longer. Or you last resort would be to design a hydraulic nail stretcher, and just stretch all your nails. That would be similar to a lumber stretcher, like the ones the professional carpenters use when they buy those bargain bin 8 foot long 2x4's that are only 7 foot 11 inches long. However, a nail stretcher would be smaller and easier to operate.
I'd suggest 2-1/2" if your gun will handle them.
The trim is 5/8'' at the outside edge. The drywall is 1/2''. Why can't I just double up on the number of brads?
If the depth is not enough you don't have strength to hold no matter how many you have. You could probably work out the math on surface contact area, strength differences for different diameters etc and get an answer as to exactly what you need. If you were to penetrate a 2" nail 1" into the base you'd have more holding power than 16 brads that penetrate 1/16" into the base.
Worst case scenario, if the trim loosens you add some 2" nails. For 69¢ you can buy enough to do a lot of trim. Meantime, the time spent reading and writing all the posts on this subject you could have had the job done with either method.
True, but it's likely that I'll be installing more door/window trim in the future.
I used 2" brads 18GA w/airnailer and the 1X4 window/door casing and 1X5 baseboards went on fine.
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