Air vs. Manual Floor Nailers

[Ole Anderson]

Most rental places will carry an air over hammer flooring hammer.

[Larry Edgerton]

I use this company's nailers.

http://primatech.ca/Home.shtml

I also use their nails. I tested all the common brands and these hold the best. They have teeth! I switched from a manual to a Bostich, and now the Prinatech air assist. I would not go back to a manual. If you have a piece you need to pull in you can hit a air assist as hard as you want, it won't hurt it, but when you don't need to you can just tap it with the weight of the mallet. They also are a lot easier when you are close to a wall, a lot less dents in the wall.

My 2 cents.....

[Rich Engelhardt]

I had a small job to do that was spread over a few days. Renting a pneumatic was about the same price as buying one from Harbor Freight on sale, so, I bought the Harbor Freight for about $100.

I used Bostitch fasteners in it and it worked flawlessly - not one single jam and the only driving problems were ones caused by me, not the tool.

Lumber Liquidators used to have the best deal going on fasteners, but they switched to their own house brand.

[Mark Wooden]

+1 with Tom on the manual nailer. I've always gotten a floor to lay up better with one and as he says-laying it all out, kicking it into place and swinging the hammer- becomes a rhythm
Putting down flooring is a tiring job and now that I'm 60, I try to always have a helper to spell me,although they're always amazed at how much more an experienced old man does than they do.
The Primatech nails look like the same nails a Powernail nailer uses. I wonder if they'd interchange.

[Larry Edgerton]

+1 with Tom on the manual nailer. I've always gotten a floor to lay up better with one and as he says-laying it all out, kicking it into place and swinging the hammer- becomes a rhythm
Putting down flooring is a tiring job and now that I'm 60, I try to always have a helper to spell me,although they're always amazed at how much more an experienced old man does than they do.
The Primatech nails look like the same nails a Powernail nailer uses. I wonder if they'd interchange.

I'm 58, so I can relate to how experience matters to speed, but at the end of the day the young guys go have a few beers and chase tail, and I go home and take a couple of Aleve with a scotch chaser.

The Powernails will fit in a Primatech nailer, so I assume the Primatech nails will fit in a PortaNailer. Once in a while I run out so I buy whatever, Bostich will fit as well. The teeth part of the Primatech nails is sharper and has a backwards angle where the Portanails and Bostich are rather vague waves.

If you do much flooring you owe it to yourself to try a Primatech, they are that good. Not cheap, but worth every penny and will easily do just as good a job as a manual with a lot less effort. I think the secret may be the large bore of the cylinder. its huge compared to the Bostich I had.

Larry

[David Spurr]

Rent an air nailer from home depot. About 50 bucks a day.

[Mark Wooden]

I'm 58, so I can relate to how experience matters to speed, but at the end of the day the young guys go have a few beers and chase tail, and I go home and take a couple of Aleve with a scotch chaser.

The Powernails will fit in a Primatech nailer, so I assume the Primatech nails will fit in a PortaNailer. Once in a while I run out so I buy whatever, Bostich will fit as well. The teeth part of the Primatech nails is sharper and has a backwards angle where the Portanails and Bostich are rather vague waves.

If you do much flooring you owe it to yourself to try a Primatech, they are that good. Not cheap, but worth every penny and will easily do just as good a job as a manual with a lot less effort. I think the secret may be the large bore of the cylinder. its huge compared to the Bostich I had.

Larry

Larry, I'm trying like hell to do so much less of it...............

[Jim Becker]

Even my GC rented a flooring nailer for installing the 2000 sq ft of wide pine that went into our addition in 2008. It wasn't something he ever wanted to buy, despite having relatively frequent need. All the tool rental places around here seem to have them available. I worked one room with him and I will say having the pneumatic assist was a very good thing...

[Jim Dwight]

I think many tasks are more tiring until you learn them. Moving plywood, for instance. If I can just pick it up and get it where it is going without messing around, it is not so bad. If my plan doesn't work, I start to struggle and get more tired. I assume manual flooring nailers are like this. Those that use them and don't find them over tiring have learned how to stand and swing the hammer and it isn't bad. I haven't used one but my son and his friend used a borrowed manual nailer on the friends house. Both are a lot younger than me and both are in good shape. The friend is a rock climber, for instance, and my son does hard physical work for a living. They found the manual nailer plenty tiring.

I am not bringing this up to argue but I think anybody who wants to try out the manual nailer should understand they may be more tired than experienced users at the end of the day. I find the hunched over position tiring as well as the up and down to cut and the carrying of flooring boxes tiring so even with a pneumatic I am plenty tired by the end of the day.

[Tom M King]

Jim you're right. When I first started building houses, I hired a carpenter who had the most experience, and did good work, that I could find. His name was Randolph Pierce, and he was 73 years old in 1973. I was 23. He noticed that I was working a lot harder than I needed to and one of the first things he told me was, "Building is not so much about knowing what goes where, but how to get the plywood into the house." He was right, and it's been a game of efficiency for me since then. I'm 64, and a manual nailer doesn't tire me out, or slow me down any more than an air nailer does, but since way back then, I don't get in a hurry to do anything, but haven't found a young guy yet that can get more done in a day than I can.