pneumatic vs. manual floor nailers ?
user-111755
| Posted in Construction Techniques on
I’m about to start installing 2200 sq. ft. of pre-finished hardwood flooring. On my last house I used a borrowed manual nailer from a friends uncle who claimed they do the best job. That job was only 800 sq. ft. and turned out fine. I see mostly pneumatic nailers now. Any input from a full timer at this would be appreciated.
Replies
My old manual nailer is not missed one bit! You always needed room to swing the hammer and the energy to do this. By the end of the day I was done!
The new with air assist are a god sent, you can bump or thump when you need to tighten a run of planks and the first and last nail go in the same. Use an pneumatic nailer as 2200sq ft is a good amount to install.
Don't wait for someone to turn up and tell you how much they enjoy nailing hardwood flooring with a manual nailer!!
You'll probably use about 12,000 or so nails for a floor that size. Can you imagine the wear and tear on your elbow and wrist after smashing that thing 12,000 times?
The manual nailer does seem to pull the boards a bit tighter, but around our place it got the knickname the "whack-f*ck machine"- definitely not something to be used with kids in the house!. Whack, whack, whack, F*CK! As you get tired and your swing less accurate, the language gets bluer and bluer with every half-driven nail that you have to pull or drive in with a punch. Soon you'll be reaching for the pneumatic nailer.
Keep the pneumatic nailer on a decent pressure, not too high, and it'll do every bit as good a job. And getting the seams tight is more a matter of buying good material than of nailing anyway.
I'm partial to the manual nailers. I have installed thousands of square feet of hardwood flooring and I have found the Air Assist Nailers to be inconsistant and unreliable. I have found the manual nailer a consistant tool. It also has one other redeeming quality. If you have a board that is a little warped the manual nailer will allow you to seat the board, were as the air assisted doesn't allow you to bash the board into place. It just fires the nail.
dave
I started with a manual porta nailer. The problem I had was that if I'm installing all day, by the end, I'm dead, and if you don't hit the thing with all of your might, the nail won't go all the way in. Then you have ot pull it out or try to set it by hand. But it did pull the boards nice and tight. I jsut bought a Bostich FS??? what ever model it is. The stapler with the prefinished flooring cleat. It's really nice. I've done a few thousand feet with it, and it hasn't misfired or jammed once. I can still hit it as hard as the manual to pull crooked boards together, but on 90% of the hits, I don't have to, so I don't wear out as much. Plus the cleat lets you roll the stapler along the edge, so you don't have to pick it up and move it for every staple. That saves your back muscles. The other nice thing about it is that you can get much closer to the wall since you don't need a full tomahawk swing. A slight tap will actuate the stapler, so minimal up swing is required. My vote is for pneumatic all the way.
every pneumatic floor nailer i've used allowed the operator (me)
to hit it as hard as needed if needed to draw a not so straight
board up. it also required a light pop to set down a straight specimen.
around these parts everyone has gone to floor staplers.
Thats exactly what I was trying ot say. I think you described it better than I dod though. I love the stapler, I've had no problems with it, but I'd imagine if it only drives a staple half way, it's even worse than dealing with a half driven nail.
we spent 20 years with two porta-nailers.. wanna buy 'em ?
our Bostich floor stapler will pull the boards every bit as tight as the Porta-nailer
no going back for us.... i've got friends who own Prota-nailers.. they alwasy come borrow our Bostich now... and pay me for it 's use... and keep us in staplesMike Smith Rhode Island : Design / Build / Repair / Restore
Mike, I gotta admit that your experience with both the portanailer and bostich stapler changed my thoughts on the subject. I stopped by our local tool repair shop and the guy who works on 'em says the bostich stapler is about as quick and inexpensive to repair as they come, and is by far the most popular model in our neck of the woods.
It's going to be easy to forget how much work is required to manually set those floor cleats!
Beer was created so carpenters wouldn't rule the world.
Forget the manual for prefinished.
If the board is warped and you wack the manual harder as suggested to snug up the fit, you'll cause hairline cracks (or worse) in the finish at the edges. The factory finishes can be rather brittle given that they are more or less fully cured when you install them. With unfinished, the floor gets sanded, so nobody cares about a bruise here or there.
Even with the pneumatic guns, fine tune your technique to avoid the big slams. I actually applied little pieces of 1/8 adhesive-backed foam to the face of the nailer to help avoid dinging the edges on my last pre-finished floor install.
It's always that last nail/staple in a 4 foot board that causes the ding and the resulting blue streak.
I did my own flooring (approx 3200 sq ft); actually my 14 year old son did most of it. We used a grizzley pneumatic stapler. I chose stapels for the following reasons:
The grizzley did not operate well until it was well broken in. Until then I had to take it apart and re-grease it about 6 or 8 times. my last 2000 feet went down with no problems.
Roger <><
pneumatic....for all reasons previously mentioned
nail...........holds better than a staple, and can be set with a nail set if needed....ever try to set a staple? not fun! ....especially on prefinished....let alone have to pull the staple...jmho..
Geoff
I've had no issues with staples.
Staples hold just fine and can actually be set MORE easily than nails if needed. Just grind down an old blade screwdriver (short ones work best) so that the tip is as thick at the end as about 1.5 staple thicknesses. This gives you a staple setter that can not slip on the top of the fastener like a nail set often does. It's also faster since placement is not as critical due to the larger surface area of the driver.
As for pulling staples or nails... well, both scenarios are nasty with flooring given that there's little choice most times other than to destroy the tongue in at least the area where the fastener was placed.
As always your mileage will vary.
Thaumaturge,
good idea on the screwdriver, do you grind a "slot" in the end of the blade so as to give a shoulder for the staple to set in?...much like a nail set is...seems that it would help the blade from sliding off the staple.
Geoff
Sorry for the late reply... doing battle with a bathroom remodel.
I didn't grind a slot in the end of the screwdriver, but the end did wind up with a slight concave shape due to the grinder diameter.
The slot might work even better, but too deep and the 'horns' will hit the surrounding tongue material before the staple head and risk splitting. I'm also not sure how to grind a uniform slot in something roughly an 1/8" thick.
Even without the slot, it didn't slip off much as the valley the staple fires into above the tonque kept it centered.
Have fun.
Geoffrey,
I believe that staples hold a lot better than nails, Whether on plywood or OSB, I have sometimes had to pull a board off and the staple stays in place with a thin wafer of wood trapped inside it. Amazing holding power.
Ron
Pneumatic.
You can still hit it as hard as you want.
But the beauty is that when you don't or when you mis-hit. It still fires a fully seated fastener.
Best? When you're up against the wall during the last few rows and you can't get a full swing. Tap tap tap. Fully driven fasteners with little effort. And yes, you seat the board manually prior to firing.
pneumatic ...
and make a stop at Sears first.
but the biggest Craftsman flathead screw driver they have ...
usually closer to mechanics tools.
best "board snugger-upper" there is ... hold it at an angle to the bowed board ... one good smack with the hammer to drive it into the subfloor ... and pry the board into place.
nail tight and move on.
Jeff
Buck Construction
Artistry In Carpentry
Pittsburgh Pa