6 Nail Gun Mistakes You Should Avoid | Brad Nailer Tips

There's some common nail gun  mistakes that you can make And they can ruin your projects waste your  money or even injure you now i'm going to tell you what each of those are and how to avoid them the most common mistake that i see and this is especially true for people just getting into air nailing they're not really sure what it is is not understanding which size nailer to use and which type nailer to use I own three different gauges of air nailers all the way from a 15 gauge trim nailer to a 23 gauge pin nailer a 15 gauge nailer is also referred to as a trim nailer or a  finish nailer and also there's a 16 gauge variety which is very   very similar so these shoot a larger  nail this is a two and a quarter inch trim nail  this is a legit fastener you don't need glue to  hold it in place this has a nice head on the nail   and you do see that these are angled so it's  great for installing door jams trim baseboards   things like that next up is the 18 gauge nailer or  the brad nailer love that one these are 18 gauge   and i have cordless as well as pneumatic varieties  of these and i'll tell you about the pros and the   cons of these a little bit later but this shoots  a much smaller nail this does still have a head   to it though but these are generally smaller in  the 5 8 to about 2 inch range so this is great   for general purpose this is the nailer that i use  the most the 18 gauge is definitely the workhorse   that's the one that i would recommend if you're  a beginner and you just want to have one nailer   to start off with it's great for attaching small  trim or cove molding onto projects you can install   quarter inch backs or bottoms onto drawers or onto  the backs of cabinets you can also do things like   shoe molding on baseboards all kinds of things  like that and it's great for just general home diy   as well as the woodworker the smallest of these  is the 23 gauge or the pin nailer and it gets its   names because it actually has pins versus nails  so this is a headless pin 23 gauge you can see   how tiny it is it just has a bevel on one side  and there is no head on the back end so it is a   pin not a nail with a head and what that means is  that the holding power on these is very very small   so these are for very delicate items and the nice  thing about this though is it leaves a very tiny   hole so if you want to have this on the face or  the surface of a finished project this hole that   it leaves is going to be much smaller and speaking  of which let me show you real quick the difference   between these three in both noise when i use  them as well as the size hole that they leave so if you need max holding power you want to  use a 15 or 16 gauge nailer if you've got the   delicate stuff use the 23 gauge nailer with some  glue because that is not going to hold it in place   in an 18 gauge nailer it's kind of right in  the middle but you do want to use glue with it   to make that wood on wood connection really  solid but now let's go to mistake number two   which is what is the right size nail to use if i'm  using an 18 gauge nailer within each gauge of nail   there are also different lengths of nail just like  there are with screws in my shop i have a whole   range of nails that i use from three-eighths to  three quarters one inch one and a quarter one and   a half and two inch brad nails and that's because  it all depends upon the size of the material and   the orientation that you're joining them together  so my rule of thumb on how to choose nail size   depends upon orientation if i am face joining two  pieces together then i need to make sure first and   foremost i don't blow through the back side so  if i'm joining two pieces of three quarter for   instance that is an inch and a half thick i would  use an inch and a quarter nail just like i would   a screw so that gives me a quarter inch safety net  to make sure that i don't blow through the back of   this so along that same line if i was attaching a  quarter inch piece to a three quarter inch piece   that's an inch of total thickness i would use  a three quarter inch nail for that same reason   now when we're joining a board perpendicular to  another board you obviously have a lot more room   because the length of the nail it's not going  to blow out the back so you've got a little bit   more leeway i like to increase the size there and  go two to three times the length of the material   that i'm attaching so if i'm joining three quarter  inch material to three quarter inch material i'll   typically go an inch and a half and that'll  give me a full three quarter into the board   but if i'm going quarter inch onto three quarter  even half if i only use 2x that would be a half   inch nail and that wouldn't give me a whole lot  of holding power only a quarter of an inch so   there i like to go more like 3x and i'll go up to  a three quarter or even a one inch nail for this   sometimes an inch and a quarter because i just  don't want to change the nails you just don't   want to go way too long and use like a two inch  nail because then you'll increase the chance that   you'll blow out the side of it before i jump into  this next tip i want to give a shout out to the   honest carpenter he has a video on nine mistakes  for brad nailers and i actually found that video   after i had already scripted this entire thing  i watched this video it's got some great tips   in it i'll have a link down to it below so now  that we have the right gauge nail in the right   length nail we're in the clear right wrong not  so fast my friend because mistake number three   is over driving or under driving your nail and  that's all about the settings on your compressor   or your nail gun or the combination of the two  so let's start with compressor settings now   every nail gun that runs off of a compressor on it  somewhere at least if you still have the stickers   on it it'll have the max psi and maybe even the  minimum psi so you want to look at that and make   sure that you're setting your compressor within  that range so let me show you the difference   between setting it at 70 psi and setting it at 120  psi and what that looks like on a piece of wood   so i've got my small air compressor here  and the number you're looking for is   on the outlet side not the tank side so the outlet  side will always be smaller mine right now is set   at right about 70 psi so i'm gonna nail this  in here and we'll see how how deep it goes so this is just on the surface and it is just  under but barely barely under i almost probably   can't even fill that hole because it's it's  basically flush with the surface i'm actually   going to crank this down to 50 just to show you  what it's going to look like if it's under firing so at 50 psi it definitely underdrove  and that is proud of the surface   now i'm going to crank it up to  120 and let's see where that goes   so that drove significantly deeper i'll give you a  close-up here but the one that is proud i'm going   to have to drive through and the one that is deep  that may be too much so i've had something like   quarter inch material i'm going to use that at  the 120 psi setting and we'll see what happens so this drove pretty deep and i would say it  probably drove almost halfway through and i bet   i can just pull this straight up so if you drive  it too deep in quarter inch material you basically   lose all your holding power the other way to  control how deep the nails are going is through   the little adjustment on the nailer now most of  them have this not all of them do but this one has   a little adjuster here that you can turn the knob  and that basically moves the driver up and down   to help it drive further or lower and if you have  a cordless nailer that's the only adjustment you   have because there is no compressor it is all  on board and there's just a little wheel here   that you can adjust that moves the driver pin  up and down to push it down more or less if you   don't have one i would highly recommend picking up  one of these uh what the heck is this thing called   spring loaded if you've got a brad nailer you're  going to want to have one of these which is a   nail set you can get a regular nail set which you  use with a hammer but this is a spring-loaded one   which is pretty cool so it's got a small end and  a large end and you can just put that right on top   of the nail that you need to set and then spring  it into place and then it's all done i'll have a   link to this and all the nailers and compressors  i've been talking about down below in the   description and speaking of cordless nailers let's  go ahead and jump into the fourth mistake which is   buying the wrong setup you don't want to spend  money on things that you're not going to use or is   not right for your setup so there are definitely  advantages to the pneumatic side as well as to   the cordless side but you need to think about  what's right for you the big thing you want to ask   yourself is how do you want to use these tools and  what other tools might you use if you're planning   on using a lot of different nailers like a 15  gauge an 18 gauge and a pin nailer then buying   one compressor and making the investment and then  getting the tools for cheaper is going to maybe   make more sense if you're only looking to get an  18 gauge brad nailer and you've already invested   in a battery platform then this could make a lot  of sense as well i've used both pneumatic and a   few different types of cordless the performance  of cordless nailers has come a long way and they   perform just as well as the pneumatic brothers  now check out this clip of me using bump fire mode   on the milwaukee versus the ryobi the milwaukee  can go as fast as i can fire it but the ryobi   still does keep pace and at half the price of the  milwaukee it's a good deal now for pneumatics the   price per gun is going to be cheaper but then  you also have to buy a compressor but what size   compressor do you buy so the size of compressor  is going to again depend upon what you want to do   this is a one gallon and that is very light you  can take it around and do punch list type stuff   work in different environments that you can't haul  a normal large compressor up but if you want to do   any type of spraying or any type of air tools  you're going to need a much larger compressor   one that would have 60 to 80 gallon capacity  because those tools like a die grinder or   something like that takes a lot of air so make  sure you look at the cfm requirements which is   cubic feet per minute of air for the types of  tools that you're going to buy and make sure the   compressor you're buying can supply that the last  thing to think about on pneumatics is if you're   going to get oil-free or oiled nailers i've had  this finished nailer for well over a decade it is   not oily so i have to add oil to it every time  i use it to keep everything lubricated inside   this is a newer one and this is oil-less i  don't have to add lubrication to it at all   so you might want to think about that as well to  decide if you want to deal with the hassle of oil   and while we're talking about maintenance and  lubricants i want to thank today's sponsor   wd-40 company their specialist line  now has the iconic blue and yellow can   with a red cap you've seen me using the dry lube  spray and i've used that on hinges and on my saw   blades to keep the dust off them they also have  silicone and lithium grease lubricants and those   are great for metal on metal connections and  where you really want to make sure that you're   waterproofing and getting a high performance of  lubrication on the other side they have the gel   lubricant it can stay for up to 12 months it is  a great option for outdoors and vertical surfaces   and of course there's the wd-40 multi-use product  i have sprayed this on so many things throughout   my life whether it's a lawnmower a skateboard  or my car to help loosen and lubricate things   around the house now you can check the link down  below in the description to find out about all the   wd-40 specialist line and a big thank you to wd40  company for sponsoring this video the next mistake   i see is people ruining their projects because  they're filling their holes the wrong way and the   finish turns out horrible i'm gonna pop a couple  nails into this and i'll show you what i mean   i'm gonna fill one with wood putty  and the other with glue and sawdust   to show you what happens so after it's dry i'm  going to now sand away the putty and the glue   so the mistake here is not sanding enough because  all of that glue in that wood putty has gone   everywhere around that nail hole and it is on the  wood and if you don't sand it enough then it is   going to show through on the stain and i'm going  to apply some stain here to show you but before   i do that i'm going to show you a trick on how  to solve it so that you've only got the putty on   just the portion where the nail is going to be  all you need to do is get a piece of blue tape   and put it over wherever you're going to  brad nail i'll put a nail in here as well   and then cover this one with wood putty so now  when this is dry we can just take off the tape and   all that excess is going to go with it and i'll  clean that up with just a few swipes of the sander   and now i'm going to apply stain and  see how it looks on all three of these   i've got some dark ebony stain just to see  if we can get the most contrast out of this   all right check this out look at how dark it is  over here because there's none of that extra putty   and dust filling the pores and so the pigment  can come in there from the stain versus over here   it's it's a little lighter and you can really tell  over here on the putty side where i didn't get it   there's a nice little circle but it's also just  a lot lighter all around there and then the glue   as well there so if you are going to fill holes  on your project and apply a stain or finish   make sure that you get all of that extra dust and  everything off around the nail hole or you can   use the blue tape trick and just have a little dot  and it won't affect it at all now the last mistake   is probably the most common and the most dreaded  and that's blowing a nail out of the side of a   board that you're nailing into so there's a few  reasons why that happens let me show you and i'll   show you how you can avoid it or at least help  make the chances less so i'm just going to shoot   nails into this poplar board i'm not going to try  to attach anything to it just to show what's going   on the first thing i want you to notice though is  the grain direction of this board so it's kind of   coming at an angle and that's part of the issue  is that the nails want to follow the grain   now some of the obvious reasons of why  blow out can happen is the positioning of   your nail gun if you have it too far to the  edge or if you don't have it vertical if   you have it tilted to the side it's going  to blow out and that could look like this there we go it just came out right on the side  there i'm going to break in here for a bonus tip   always always keep your fingers away from where  you're shooting the nails i actually made this   video because of the comments that i got during  my drill charging station build where people saw   me moving my fingers away right before firing  the nail gun now i've never gotten a nail in the   finger but i've been very close before and ever  since then i have always done this so make sure   you stay safe out there i'm gonna move this to  the center and do the same thing even at an angle   and it will probably not come out so as long  as you're going in the center of the board   even if you're at an angle versus coming over  even just a little bit you can save it from   poking out but even if i keep it vertical  if i have it to the edge of the board the   grain direction might push that nail out so i'm  going to try that i'm going to keep it vertical   shoot it on there i'm going to put this up  next to the edge but keep it nice and straight   there you go that was just a little bit  further over and you see it just came   right out because it's following that grain  and it's wanting to shoot out so keeping the   nailer vertical and going towards the center is  definitely going to help but here's the tip that's   really going to save you and that has reduced  the blowouts on my projects almost down to none   is not to shoot in line with the board  but to shoot the nail perpendicular to   the board and i'll tell you why so i showed  you some close-ups of the nails earlier   and what you might have seen is that they're  kind of like a 2x4 in the sense that they   have a wide face and a narrower width so what  that means is that the nail is going to want   to bend to the left and the right as you're  shooting the gun and looking down the barrel   because it does not want to go up or back because  of the nature and the width of the nail so if we   know that the nail is going to go left and right  then we need to turn our board so that it can go   to the left and the right and not blow out so i'm  going to come right up on this edge very close and look at that it did not go anywhere it was  even closer than this last one that blew out   but it did not go out the edge so keep your  nailer perpendicular to the board that you're   nailing into and it is going to drastically  reduce the number of blowouts that you have   if you like this tips and tricks video i've  got a playlist queued up for you with some   more right there and youtube thinks you're going  to like that video right there i want to give a   big thank you to all the folks joining the ftbt  builders club you can get more information down   below and i'll catch you guys over there on the  next video we're going to build something awesome

Channel: Fix This Build That

Views: 1,060,382

Keywords: Nail gun, air nailer, brad nailer, pin nailer, trim nailer, finish nailer, 18 gauge nailer, 23 gauge nailer, 15 gauge nailer, 16 gauge nailer, compressor, air compressor, cordless air nailer, cordless nail gun, nail gun mistakes, air nailer tips, how to, how to build, how to make, woodworking, woodworking projects, woodwork, diy, do it yourself, diy project, fixthisbuildthat, fix this build that, ftbt

Id: 19Gm5yQFWRs

Length: 15min 26sec (926 seconds)

Published: Sun Feb 28 2021