Hi. I'm going to be installing some 3/4" poplar trim on 3/4" wood backing and need some advice. I have both 16 and 18 gauge nailers. Because of the style of the trim, I'm going to have to nail pretty close to the edges, so I figure the 18 gauge is the best choice. We got the trim custom made and the wife will kill me if I split it. I have a 2 part question. First, if I go with the 18 gauge, would the
3/4" poplar just create a bunch of 18 gauge pretzels and second, since the brads are only 1.25", is 1/2" penetration into the backing enough? I guess the other question would be, if I go with the 16 gauge, is it likely to split the wood?
I've used 16 gauge nailer with poplar many times and don't recall ever splitting it. Might want to go with a longer nail. However using the heavier nail will cause more filling than the brad.
All else being equal, the higher the gauge the less likely you are to split your trim. However, if your trim is expensive/rare/in limited supply, why take the chance ... when close to an end, pre-drill and use small finishing nails.
BTW, this is a perfect opportunity to add to your tool arsenal and buy a good 21ga pin nailer. ;)
I recently faced the same issue as you are facing. I attached about 40 feet of 3/4 poplar trim (run through my router table, so actually a little thinner than 3/4) using a 23 gauge pin nailer and glue. It worked perfectly. I picked up the pin nailer at Harbor Freight for about $15. That pinner will only shoot up to 1" pins, but that was enough to secure the molding until the glue dried.
There are some areas of this trim where I have plenty of room (at the top and bottom of these 4 ft pieces) and areas where I have to be closer to the edge. I think I'm going to use the long 16 gauge in those roomy areas and use the 18 in the tight spaces just for some reinforcement.
Mine does, mine does, mine does. LOL... I have the Grex and it came with an assortment of every size pin that it will shoot in quantities of 1000 each. The gun has performed flawlessly and is fun to use. I think I have used and almost run out of 6 or 7 of the sizes. It shoots up to 1-3/8" and down to 3/8. It has no problem making a long pin disappear in hard wood but as you might suspect it can come out unexpectedly in weird grain. I never thought I would use it as much as I do.
Poplar is pretty soft, use some glue and you'll be fine.
The smaller (diameter) fastener the better if you're concerned about splitting. Another thing to consider is that most pneumatic fasteners have a chisel point (not round). IMHO, you want to turn the gun so that the chisel point cuts through the grain instead of spreading the grain as it goes in. In thin stock I'll turn the gun so that the chisel point is perpendicular to the direction of the grain. This is a lesson learned from hanging miles of casing and applies to both pins and finish nails. YMMV
I almost bit off on a cobalt blue (nope, not Lowe's, HF) when they had them a month or so ago for $!9.95 This was the advanced model, it shot pins as long as 1 1/4". :^)
I put several people on to the HF brad nailers as they were so cheap that you could literally buy them, use them for a while then toss them. I bought about 5 or six of their larger 18 ga brad nailers about three years ago and gave them out as Christmas gifts. For $9.95, you got the nailer, a tiny bottle of oil, 250 1 1/4 brads, the air fitting, some teflon tape (4 inches!) and a tiny bottle brush which was liberated from each package to keep as a paint gun nozzle brush.
All of them still work. One of them is in a high school shop now and has had thousands of brad shot through it.
Go figure.
I really like my Bostitch stuff a lot more, but I did use one of those for several days trimming out a house when I was waiting on a seal kit for my 2" Bostitch bradder. Not bad... not bad at all. Worth every cent and then some.
I will have to be looking more and more at backup plans as now my Bostitch repair guy has pulled stakes and is gone. I will now have to wait for a couple of weeks to get parts from Bostitch when I need seal kits, triggers, etc. I have 7 different Bostitch guns, so I may be in some trouble when one of them dies. With a $65 bench fee and charges for all parts, some may not be worth fixing. Not that long ago, when I bought a couple of cases of nails, they would replace any soft parts a gun needed for nothing, and take it apart and install any hard parts I purchased from them for nothing. Those were the days....
Sitting here thinking about it, the hell of it all is that a HF backup gun costs less than the tune up kit of soft parts for the smaller guns. And for $5, I can get the HF store exchange warranty that lasts or a year on a new brad gun. Might have to think this through some more.
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