Learn me air nailers/nail guns (ideally HF)

While the vast majority of my tools are for working on things more mechanical, there are a number of times when I either need to or get called on to do things more along the lines of carpentry. Tonight is one such instance, where SWMBO's work needs something built and I got volunteered to make it.

I've decided that it's high time I pick up an air nailer to make this job go a heck of a lot more quickly, but I'm a bit unsure of exactly what size/capability one I should get.

I need one that will successfully nail two 2x4s together so need something capable of using nails at least 2" long, but ideally can use a bit shorter too (have to nail some plywood sheet to them too and don't want them protruding).

So far my best guess is that this one from HF would be the most cost-effective for what I'm needing to do along with some 1 1/4" and 2 1/2" nails. Thoughts?

Based on my limited experience with 2 or 3 air nailers and staplers from HF, I'd pass. Way too many feed and jamming problems in my experience.

I have 3 of them, and they work great!

That nailer won't shoot nails with much of a head or diameter, so you'll want to pass for nailing 2x4s together. Pick up a framing nailer and some 2.5" nails, and you'll be good to go.

Tom's right I wouldn't be relying on a finish or brad nailer to reliably hold dimensional lumber together.

Framing nailer is what you want.

Finish nailer can reasonably stick plywood to stuff. If I'm nailing something together and I plan on it staying that way, I always use glue too.

I've got the Porter Cable kit, pancake compressor, brad nailer, finish nailer, and stapler, and I also have a HF finish nailer. Porter Cable vs HF, they both work basically the same, reliability wise no difference, but the Porter Cable is a bit lighter.

Also when those small gauge nails hit a hard spot, they can darn near turn a 180° on you. Be careful where you place your hands.

Hey, I'll give you my HF framing nailer for the price of shipping. Biggest POS I ever used. Oh, but you'll have to fix it first.

I have that 16ga HF nailer you linked. It is great. I use it all the time, or at least whenever I need to do wood work, which isn't that often. I also have the HF 18ga nailer/stapler, but I prefer the 16ga. I have not had any feeding/jamming problems with either. The 18ga one goes on sale for almost free.

Yeah, if sticking 2x4's together is going to be a frequent thing, get a framing nailer.

My only point of reference is Bostitch or Hitachi stuff, and my conclusion is "meh, for my use it's not worth it." Would I buy HF if I was a contractor? Probably not. But it's doing a damn fine job assembling my garage.

I bought the 21* framing nailer from HF a few weekends ago, so far it's worked out good on building this shed. It was down to $80 before tax and I had a 25% off coupon. I will say the issues I've had with it are not really issues with the nailer, but the cheap nails I got from HF, the plastic breaks off too easily between nails so one gets loose and can cause a jam. Better nails would fix that issue I think. Other than that it's been working great.

I got the harbor freight framing nailer, it jams once In a while, but no more so than my dad's bostich. I have a hitachi kit with two smaller nailers, one of those broke on me already. So I put hf above hitachi.

After you unplug the air hose, the gun is still charged. You can nail your hand to the work bench.

Bostich N-88 wire feed framing nailer. Accept no substitute!

If you want to try it out come pick up mine, it is literally the best thing ever when framing stuff up. On October 15th I have another deck/ramp to build so just get it back by then.

Thanks for the offer KyAllroad, but I needed to have it built (and did ) before you responded. I ended up picking up the 21-degree HF framing nailer and a metric ton (the only quantity they appear to sell...) of nails for it- with a 20% off coupon and also getting a few larger clamps I figured I'd need it topped out just about $100. It got the job done quite well, and FAR quicker than if I'd used screws or tried nailing it together by hand.

It jammed twice in the course of assembling the bench/step thing but as t25torx said I think it's more likely the fault of the nails than the gun itself. I think for my infrequent use of it that it should work great- will come in very handy if/when we do some remodeling and closing/opening up walls in the house and even more so if we go completely off the deep end and buy some property out in the sticks to build a small getaway cabin.

The only thing I don't like is that the minimum length it can use is 2 1/2", which means nailing any kind of normal-thickness sheet to a 2x4 on the flat side of the 2x4 is going to mean the nail will be sticking out on the other side, but for now that's not too much of a problem.

Thanks!

That's because it's a FRAMING nailer, not a "I want to nail this plywood to this frame" nailer. Use the almost free 18ga or the 16ga for that.

I have about 50 different air nailers. NONE of them are HF, and I certainly plan on keeping it that way.

I'm glad it is working out for you.

How much did you have to spend for a "metric ton" of nails? Doesn't that effectively change the buy-in price of the wonderfully inexpensive nail gun??

SVreX wrote: I have about 50 different air nailers. NONE of them are HF, and I certainly plan on keeping it that way. I'm glad it is working out for you. How much did you have to spend for a "metric ton" of nails? Doesn't that effectively change the buy-in price of the wonderfully inexpensive nail gun??

As Tom said, if I were going to be using the thing to make a living and putting that metric ton of nails through it over the course of a few days, I'd probably have gone with something more expensive- but for occasionally assembling things it should be fine.

The pack of nails- 2000 of them to be precise- was $30 (less than 2 cents per nail). That box will probably last me about a decade.

Heh, I bought a HF roofing nailer, and the smallest quantity of nails available was... 7200!!

IIRC, I still didn't spend $100 once I'd left the store.

In reply to Ashyukun:

2000 is a metric ton?? That's one box. I go through 3 or 4 boxes a week.

They used to make us buy those nails by the pallet full!