How To Keep Brad Nails From Curling

The In's and Out's of Pneumatic Nailers
By Rick Christopherson

Pneumatic nailers were one time considered viable simply for production woodworking, but more and more hobbyist woodworkers are start to apply these versatile tools. Trying to decide which nailer to purchase can be difficult enough, but once the nailer is put to utilise, the nailer can comport unexpectedly for the inexperienced woodworker.

Which Nailer is Right
Unlike nailers have different purposes. The commencement question nearly woodworkers enquire when because the purchase of a nailer, is which size to get. The answer to this question is dependant on the type of piece of work the woodworker performs.

Small Crafts For doing small projects, your best bet is to use an xviii or 19 approximate brad nailer. These typically shoot 3/8" and longer brads. A pin nailer is about the same equally a brad nailer, but shoots a headless pivot. The chief benefits to using the smaller nailer for smaller projects is start of all, the ability to become it into tighter spots, and secondly, the smaller estimate nail produces less splitting. However, when using these small nailers for larger work, they do not have the driving ability to pull workpieces together, and they accept a greater chance for following the woods grain and bravado out.
Crafts and Lite Cabinetry If your primary work is in larger crafts and the occasional small-scale cabinet, and so a 16 ga brad nailer may be best. This volition typically shoot 5/8" to 2" nails, but blowout can occur with nails greater the ane 1/4" (Refer to the department beneath discussing blowout)
Cabinetry For full calibration cabinetry, I would recommend a 15 ga finish nailer. The unit I take volition shoot nails from 3/iv" to 2", but 90% of the time I utilize 1 1/2" nails (4d).
Full Range If your work runs the full gambit from modest jewelry boxes to large cabinetry, so I would recommend using a dedicated nailer for each type of work. For the full range of uses, I would recommend the 18 ga small nailer for detail work, and the 15 ga nailer as the cabinetry workhorse. The smaller estimate nailer can get into tighter places, and has less of a tendency to carve up the forest, while the heavier gauge nailer has improve holding power, enough force behind the drive to pull workpieces tighter together, and has less trend to blowout.
Because of this mix, I bought a peak-of-the-line 15 ga nailer, and the cheapest and physically smallest version of the 18 ga. Because I place less demand on the smaller nailer, I can justify buying the cheapest one available. At $80, if the nailer lasts me more than two years(which it has), it is worth the investment. For the larger nailer, being the workhorse of the shop, if it fails, I am out of work until information technology is repaired, and so the cost is justified.

Blowout
Having a boom accident out the side of your workpiece is not only extremely frustrating, but it is besides a fairly common trouble. Blowout is typically observed when nailing one slice of solid lumber to the edge of some other slice. The smash tip volition either blister the surface of the plywood, or come up completely out of the edge. Earlier I began to do cabinetry total-time, I used a 16 ga cease nailer as the sole nailer in the "hobby-shop". This nailer was inexpensive and generally did an adequate chore, but on ane particular project I had horrendous blowout problems.

If you lot are getting a lot of blowout, don't experience bad. It is not necessarily your aim, nor the tilt of the nailer. The most significant crusade for blowout is when the nail volition follow the annular rings in forest. This is because in that location are areas of soft wood surrounded by harder forest. The nail has the trend to follow the softer wood and non want to laissez passer through the harder areas. This will actually curve the smash equally it passes through the woods.

Nail Tip Orientation A pregnant gene which causes a blast to track improperly through the wood is the orientation of the nail tip. Unlike standard nails, strip nails used in a nailer don't have a 4 sided betoken, they have a two sided point (a wedge). Every bit the nail passes through the grain of the woods, it'southward like driving a auto down a rutted road. Just as the tires will attempt to follow the ruts, so will the nail effort to follow the grain. The wedge acts as a keel to go along the nail tip following the grain. If yous turn the smash ninety° to the curve of the annular rings, the "keel effect" is reduced, and the boom volition cut through the rings instead of following them.
Tilt of the Nailer Going back to the analogy of a rut in the route, it should be fairly obvious that it is easier to cantankerous over a rut at a right angle than it is to cross nigh parallel. If you try to cross a rut that is nearly parallel to your direction of travel, the rut will catch the tire and pull you lot in. Yet, if y'all cross a rut at a right angle, you'll experience a bump, simply it won't pull yous into the direction of the oestrus. The same is true for a nail.
If your blast blows out to the right manus side, the common tendency is to move the nailer as far left as possible, and then fifty-fifty tilt it to the right so you don't get a blowout on the left manus side. This actually makes things worse. What should exist done is to movement the nailer tip closer to the side of the blowout, and tip it away. By doing this, the nail will exist closer to cut the annular rings at a right angle. This concept goes against a woodworker's common instinct.
Use the Nails Profile Virtually nails are non circular nor square, they are oval or rectangular. This is a manufacturing pattern, but it must be dealt with during utilize. But equally an "I-Beam" has greater strength upward and downwards than information technology does side to side, the boom will deflect in the direction it is thinnest. The smaller judge nails (16,18,&,19 approximate) have a rectangular cross-department. This makes it easier to bend them side-to-side. Mostly, the sparse side of most smaller nails coincides with the direction of their wedge. Withal, on the larger nails, this isn't always the case. In this instance, you demand to decide which is going to make the blast curve more: Information technology's cross-section, or the direction of the wedge. If yous are shooting a nail into annular rings, the wedge will exist predominate, but if you are shooting into particle board where random particles can deflect the nail, then the cross-section volition exist predominate.
Know Your Nailer Near of the time, the smaller nailers which use nails fabricated from a stamped steel plate, the wedge and cross-section result in the nailer blowing out side-to-side with respect to the nailer'southward body. With the xv gauge nailers where each nail is cut from a long wire, the orientation of the wedge is usually opposite. So when I utilise my small nailer, I always agree the nailer perpendicular to the plywood's border, but for the larger nailer, I always hold it parallel to the plywood's edge. I follow this rule regardless what type of material I am shooting into, as the nail could deflect for whatsoever reason.
Let's use assembling a faceframe to a cabinet shell for example. With the eighteen ga nailer where the wedge indicate (border) is in-line with the strip of nails, I will hold the nailer perpendicular to the plywood. With the larger 15 gauge nailer, the wedge is not in line with the strip, and therefore, I hold the nailer parallel to the plywood shell
Nail Strength To state the obvious, a smaller nail volition be more prone to angle than a larger nail. This is the number one reason why I limit the length of nail for each size (gauge) of nailer I use. The eighteen gauge nail is too soft to track well in fifty-fifty the nigh homogeneous of materials beyond one inch in length. A 16 approximate nail will be prone to frequent blowouts when longer than one 1/4 inches, and the same is truthful for fifteen gauge nails by ii inches.
Wood Grain Direction Many woodworkers, including professionals, don't consider the management of the wood grain when driving a smash, but this can exist ane of the well-nigh difficult to detect causes of blowout. As stated earlier, if the annular rings of the wood are near perpendicular to the direction of the blast, it will follow the direction of the rings. Before driving your nail, examine the end-grain of your lath. Offset off, this will give you a adept indication every bit to whether you may take a blowout problem before it happens. Secondly, by knowing which management the blowout might occur, you tin can take preemptive action to stop the blowout from happening. And finally, yous may be able to orient the board differently to reduce the impact of a blowout (limiting the blowout to a not-visible side)

Case Situation Dorsum when I was however using a 16 gauge nailer, I shot a half a dozen nails into a faceframe, and every single one of them blow out the side. After the second nail blew out, I started moving the nailer further abroad from the blowout; just they however blew out. I was finally shooting 1/xvi of an inch from the opposite side, and they nevertheless blew out the other side (some came out at nearly 90 degrees). Realizing the cause was the grain direction, I started shooting very close to the aforementioned side as the blow out, but tilted the gun as far off vertical as I peradventure could, and they stopped blowing out. This was considering I was cutting through the annular rings with the nail instead of post-obit them.

Air Pressure The terminal item which tin can cause, or reduce, blowout is the air pressure delivered to the nailer. Merely as a bullet does 90% of its damage when it slows to x% of its muzzle velocity, the nail will cause most of its damage (and deflection) equally information technology slows down. Let me explicate that with an example.

Allow's say yous accept a "pump-type" BB gun and a couple of aluminum cans. Give the BB gun a unmarried pump and shoot at the first tin can. The BB wouldn't penetrate the can, but it would nock it over and too make a good sized paring in the tin. Now give the gun ten pumps and shoot the 2nd can. This time, the can not only didn't fall over, but the BB made a tiny pigsty, and went directly through. Furthermore, if you compare the entrance and exit hole, the go out hole is larger than the entrance isn't it? (A BB is solid copper and doesn't deform, and then this isn't because it squashed out.) The reason is because the BB transfered more of it's energy to the can when it was moving slower.

With that said, a blast will have less of a trend to split a piece of forest when the air pressure is higher. Similarly, the nail will take less of a tendency to bend when it is moving faster too.

For this reason, I keep my 15 gauge nailer operating near its limit of 120 PSI, and the 18 gauge nailer about eighty PSI.

There is another benefit to this too!

Double Kiss
Many woodworkers have the trouble of firing ii nails when they pull the trigger a single time. This is called a Double Osculation. A double osculation is extremely dangerous since the 2d boom can strike the caput of the first, and ricochet back and hit the user. It is besides very bad for the driver and piston, every bit the 2d nail can touch on the head of the first and the impact can jam the commuter shaft and even bend it.

The actual cause for double kissing is when the pressure-pes safe of the nailer is first released, and and then reapplied. That is, the nailer will bounciness off of the woods far enough for the condom to disengage, and as the nailer again makes contact with the forest, the safety is re-engaged; and a 2d nail will be ejected. So the bodily cause is due to the bounce of the prophylactic.

While the almost obvious cause is that the user is non applying plenty pressure to the nailer to keep the head on the surface, this is compounded when the air pressure to the nailer is as well low. The low pressure volition brand the nailer bounce much more. (If you don't believe this, turn the pressure level style down to say 20 PSI and shoot a nail. The nail will simply penetrate the forest a niggling bit, only the nailer will lift abroad from the wood by a lot., no thing how difficult you concord it down.)

Splitting Woodgrain
Splitting the woodgrain while using a pneumatic nailer is far less common than driving nails in past mitt, but information technology does happen. The number one reason why the forest is split, is due to the wedge-shaped tip of the nail. As the nail penetrates the wood, the wedge will push the wood autonomously (cleave it) in order to brand a hole. Only if the wedge is penetrating perpendicular to the wood grain, information technology will cut its way through instead of pushing its way through. To really behave this to its fullest, a blunt-pointed smash volition carve up far less regardless of its orientation. Some blast manufacturers will supply blunt-pointed nails only for this reason. Increasing the air pressure volition also reduce splitting for the same reasons as listed above.