Pressure or Rachet Caulking Gun

[Cliff Hartle]

OK I'm very confused.

I used to work construction and if I handed the 20 year guy my pressure caulking gun he would look at it and act like if he asked for hammer and I handed him a hammer from a Bob the Builder Tool Belt. He only wanted a ratchet gun.

I read a how to paint article in Home Handyman and the pro there also only uses a ratchet gun.

Why?

I can't think of a single plus for a ratchet gun. The caulk comes out in pulses and when you finish you have to hurry up and grab the rod before it leaks all over your work. Now when you startup again you have to click it a few times to build up the pressure again.

On a pressure gun the caulk comes out smoother and when you stop squeezing guess what, the caulk stops flowing from the end of the tube.

Also I have read that pressure guns are easier to squeeze.

This is driving me a little crazy.

[DerbyDad03]

None of my ratchet guns require me to grab the rod at the end of run.

They all have a thumb activated lever just below the rod that releases the ratchet. As I approach the end of the run, I simply swing my thumb up and press the lever. The caulking stops almost immediately.

To start again takes maybe one squeeze...certainly not "a few"...to get the caulk to flow.

This is my favorite gun:

I have a couple like this, with the "external" release, but I like the Newborn much better.

[Cliff Hartle]

OK I may have a bit of confusion on the names of guns. When I say ratchet gun I mean one where the rod has teeth. To me those are not ratchet guns but pressure guns.

This website compares the two.

Oh and on my pressure guns you don't have to hit the release. Its kind of backs off on its own.

[Cliff Hartle]

PS I just checked the gun I was using today (thats what prompted the first post) . Its a workforce dripless gun.

[DerbyDad03]

OK, maybe it was I that was confused.

None of mine have teeth. They are all smooth rods with thumb lever releases.

Never tried one without a thumb release...don't know if I ever will unless I buy one since I don't spend a lot of time caulking with friends. ;-)

[Cliff Hartle]

Yea on a racket gun the rod has teeth and you have disengage the teeth at the end of every run. The way you do this is by grabbing the end of the rod and turning it 90 degrees.

On my dripless I just stop and put the gun down. If you read that gun comparison link, I can't find a single advantage to a ratchet gun.

Oh and that last line. I've been talking about this to my family and my 20 year son thinks he is still in middle school and can't stop giggling.

[tangerine3]

Why does everything these days need to be powered? Here we are paying a fortune for gasoline and electricity and we have these lazy generation of youth who dont have the muscle strength to operate a damn caulking gun. No wonder they are all obese. I've used a hand operated caulking gun for at least 40 years and they work just fine for me, unless the caulk is old and semi dried (which means toss it and buy new caulk). I see no sense having them powered. Just like a guy bought a powered grease gun for his car. WHY?

Some years ago I was doing some construction for a guy, and he handed me a power nailer for nailing studs. I tried it, and thought it was obnoxious. It was heavy, had that blasted air hose fighting me for the proper angle I wanted to toe nail, and it would shoot a nail before I had the stud even and straight. I told him to buy some real nails and grab my hammer out of my toolbox. That damn power nailer cut my productivity in half, wasted several studs that seemed to shatter, and this dont account for these power nailers being dangerous. No thanks. I can build easier and faster with a plain hammer and nails.

Power saws and drills router and sanders are a good thing. I also like my air ratchet. After that, I'll stick to plain old fashioned hand tools.

[HeyBub]

Your experience differs from mine. Buy yourself a pneumatic brad nailer - toe in the water, so to speak. In short order, you'll be working out for the Olympics - in the Hammer Throw event.

I watched a team of roofers work on my neighbor's house. There was one guy with a air-driver tack applier, and four others, each equipped with a hammer and a supply of shingle tacks. I swear the pneumatic tool outpaced the combined output of the four with their primitive tools.

[Cliff Hartle]

.... Rant deleted ....

I'm not talking about an air pressure gun.

I'm talking about a ratchet gun with teeth on the rod vs. a gun with a smooth rod (the people I worked with called it a pressure gun, as in "I don't want to use a dam pressure gun").

But any way air guns are great getting into places where you can't swing and also for things that may break or move. I guess when you do trim you love to go around and set all those nails. :-)

[Cliff Hartle]

Just so I can get this back on track, these are the types of guns I am talking about.

[Cliff Hartle]

By shingle tacks do you mean roofing nails for the shingles or button caps for the felt?

We always used air nailers for the shingles but hand hammered the button caps. After I no longer did construction I started to see narrow crown staplers that applied button caps.

This would have been so much easier to use.

[HeyBub]

Shingle tacks. I have that disease that causes you to forget the exact terminology - I forget what it's called.

[tangerine3]

Roofing is one place I could see using a powered nailer. I say *could*. meaning if it was designed well, and shot actual roofing nails. Somehow the thought of a tool with an air hose attached on a roof seems like a pain to handle. A hammer belt holder easily holds a hammer, but how do you fight with an air tool with a 20lbs of hose trying to pull it to the ground......

On the other hand, the "nail" matters even more. I recall somewhere around 1990 a neighbor had his house re-roofed. They used a staple rather than a nail. The staples had a crown about an inch wide. The roof went on quickly and looked the same as a hand nailed roof. Shortly after, there was a storm with high winds. The shingles on that roof came off in sheets, leaving at least half that roof naked. Neighboring homes with hand nailed shingles (many were older shingles), stayed intact other than a few blown off tabs and damages from tree branches falling on the roofs. Those staples just did not hold. I noticed the shingles that landed in my yard were cut where those staples ripped thru them, or the staples just pulled out and remained in the shingles. Upon seeing that, I knoew I would never have them used on my home. In fact the owner of my home (a relative), had to get a new roof several years later and upon my advise, told the roofing company that he did not want staples. He had to pay a little more but they used plain old roofing nails, driven with a hammer.

Saving a few hours on a job is great, but not if the resulting job is poor and prone to damage from storms that should not occur if the proper nails are used.

[Cliff Hartle]

I googled "shingle tacks" and I did find two sites that called roofing nails shingle tacks.

[krw]

Indeed. If they'd put the four to work laying out the shingles for the guy who came ready to work, they'd all have gone home much earlier. They could have left two home and gone home richer, too.