I've been trying to use an 18 gauge brad nailer to put up some baseboard and door moldings. The nails keep folding over 3/4 of the way into the wood. The trim boards are 3/4" ash, so I'm thinking that the wood is just too dense for the nails. I've tried all different settings on the guns, shorter/longer nails, higher/lower pressure - nothing seems to work.
Would a different gauge nail gun possibly work better? I'm ok with a slightly larger nail head if it will increase my chances of keeping the nails from bending over. Any suggestions?
It sounds more like a failure of the gun than wood being to hard. I've not ever seen this. I would check the air pressure to be sure it is up to spec (110 psi maybe?).
I've nailed walnut with 18ga brads and never had a problem.
Sounds like a problem with the gun. A thinner nail may not hold as well and may follow the grain a bit when being driven, but there's no excuse for the nail folding over.
Could be pore quality brad nails too... But anyway I would probably look at a finish nailer with 15ga or 16ga nails. Thye will hold your trim MUCH better and only a slightly larger nail hole to fill...
Just my 0.02 here of course, but you gun might not cut it. All guns are not alike. Not all of them have the same driving power, no matter how you crank up your compressor. For example, ALL of my Bostitch equipment will out drive my good buddy's Paslode equipment, and until I got rid of them, the Bostitch guns would out drive my other buddy's Senco stuff as well. But then again... my generic 15ga angle nailer would out drive both the Paslode and Senco 15ga nailers.
The gun should have something on it somewhere (or in the book) that tells you how many PSIs you can apply without blowing seals. Checking the pressure is a great start, though.
Properly dried ash (think baseball bats) is very, very hard. If I were you, as mentioned above my first thought would be to move up a size to a 16ga straight nailer which leaves only a tiny bit larger hole when the nail is set. It should handle the ash just fine.
I have a buddy's well used Bostich gun and a new el-cheapo Harbor Freight model, and both give me the same trouble. Adjusting the air pressure will change how far the nails penetrate the wood- at 110 psi the nails that go straight in are sunk more than 1/8" below the surface of the wood.
I can fire brads into other wood (2x's, pine, cherry, etc) with no problem - it's just the ash that I have problems with.
I'll probably try to borrow a 16 ga nailer and give it a shot.
I'm with Robert ... some guns do, some don't. Add a hardwood like ash and thinner fastener you get what you got. Go to a 16 gauge finish nailer and you should solve the problem.
Does the gun work on yellow pine?. If it doesn't. you might assume the gun or brads are faulty. I think probably your brads are to small and maybe you need a finish nail gun.
IMO, brads are really insufficient for base boards. Someone is going to say they've used brads, but I wouldn't do it. :-)
I just used an 18 gauge nail gun (Porter Cable) to install 7 door frames and 80 feet of baseboard. I used 2" (Porter Cable brand) nails. The job went amazingly fast. As per instruction, I add 2 drops of oil before use. Maybe clean the gun and check air pressure.
My PC finish nail gun uses 16 ga nails up to 2 1/2" long. My PC brad nailer uses 18 ga brads up to 1 1/2" long (?). My experience is that the 2 1/2" 16 ga nails are adequate for base board and door casing.
You know, the old Sencos were absolute horses, as were Duo Fast guns. I actually have a wide crown Senco roofing stapler that is about 30 years old that works as well as when it was made! It is now relegated to putting on that 3/16" compressed mylar coated exterior insulation. It has probably shot 500,000 staples to this point, and been rebuilt so many times I don't remember.
I got it when coil nails were a fortune for roofing guns, and staples were cheap cheap cheap. When coil nails dropped in price, and staples for roofing became unacceptable we changed to coil nails. Think about this... an average 20 square roof uses between 7200 - 7500 fasteners on a three tab installation. We hit a string of 25 - 30 square houses during a hail storm bonanza, and that gun probably shot down about 35
- 40 squares a week for about 8 - 10 months, without a rebuild.
Although it has only worked that hard off and on, it has been on duty for 30 years. I don't have another gun that has made it this far. They told me the last time I had seals put in it that the very next hard part that broke would be the end of the gun. They haven't made "The Mustang" in 15 years and their old boneyard is now empty.
I even remember when Senco made the best framer and roofing nailers around.
I think the only thing that save Bostitch from doom was the fact that after they moved their manufacturing overseas, their quality was so bad on their big guns that they moved the big gun manufacture back here. As little as a couple of years ago some of the big guns (framers, coil guns, etc.,) were made in the USA. I think now they are mixed in manufacture and part source.
Ahhhh.... the old days. ALL the nail guns were good guns when they were made in the USA.
I'm betting your nailers have a few road miles and years on them, no?
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