Fiber Cement siding nailer

I?m interested in doing fiber cement board siding. I only have

15 square, my own house. I thought a pneumatic nailer would keep things consistent. Now I see there are roofing nailer and siding nailers. The only difference I see is the length of nail roofing goes 1 ¾ siding will go to 3 inch. I would use the 1 ¾ length?

Anyone know if the siding nailer performs better than a roofing gun? I?m wondering also if there are special nails needed for cement plank siding. Stainless, ring shank, etc.

Thanks, TP

Reply to
TP
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I'm doing fiber cement siding (and new windows) on my house now. I opted to hand nail... 2" roofing nails. The long length is because the house is sheathed with 3/4" Johns-Manville Weatherite Sheathing (the brown fiber sheathing commonly used a half century ago). One of my associates did his house in fiber cement last year. He used a siding nailer with ring shank siding nails. I trust his choice of pneumatic nailer as he is the long time hardware manager for a family owned chain of home improvement stores. Part of his rationale in using the siding nailer was that the ring shank nails would hold in the sheathing (he used plywood rather than OSB) pretty well even if he missed a stud. For cutting the siding he used a cordless tile saw with carbide blade. I borrowed his tile saw last year to cut the fiber cement trim (5/4 X 4). The slow speed of the saw resulted in little airborne dust. BTW, he trimmed with white pine.

I went the hand nailing route as I'm working alone and figured that I'd spend more time measuring, climbing up and down from the pump jacks, and cutting than I would actually nailing--that has proven to be the case. For cutting the siding itself I'm using Porter Cable fiber cement shears--no dust. For the trim I'm using my angle grinder with a diamond blade to cut the fiber cement trim--lots of dust.

Regarding the nails, if you blind nail galvanized are fine. If you face nail I'd go with stainless. I'm blind nailing with galvanized and use stainless siding nails in the cases where I need to face nail (e.g., under windows, the occasional butt joint where the siding will not lay tight due to wavy sheathing).

John

Reply to
John Grossbohlin

You should check the manufacturer's specs for the type of nails they recommend for their product. You may want to follow their instructions to maintain the warranty. I've been looking into fiber-cement siding and just bought a Porter Cable Coil 350 nailer. It shoots 1 1/2-3 1/2 nails. I'm planning on using 2" hot dipped galvanized ring shank nails. I've looked at the Hardiplank and Certainteed products (check their websites) and they recommend either hot dipped galvanized or stainless steel nails. I'm not a pro but I believe most roofing nailers shoot electro-galvanized nails. I went for the PC Coil nailer instead of a conventional framing gun for a couple of reasons- 1) It offers me most versatility because I can use this gun for framing, siding, fencing, etc. and 2) I was worried that a conventional framing using plastic strip collated nails might leave bits of plastic under the nail heads when doing siding. The PC Coil nailer has an adjustable depth feature to keep the nail heads flush with the siding and uses wire collated coil nails. I haven't loaded it with nails yet but it is quite a beast of a nail gun. I definitely wouldn't want to do siding with it for a living. They do make dedicated siding nailers that might be a little lighter and user friendly but again I opted for versatility. You also may want to check on availability of nails for the particular gun that you chose. At this point I'm planning on ordering nails from Tool Crib (Amazon) as I haven't seen nails for the PC Coil nailer in my local Borg or builder's supply store. Good luck with your project.

Dale

TP wrote:

Reply to
dalemartindesigns

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