23 gauge pin nailer

[Jeff Ramsey]

I also have a Grex, and it's never failed to drive a pin.

[julian abram]

Yes, 23g pin nailer very useful tool for woodworking and trim carpentry. You don't have to worry about splitting wood with a 23G pin. I have the Porter Cable nailer.

[Jerry Olexa]

The beauty of a 23 g gun is the heads of the nails virtually disappear..Great for trim/moldings

[Lee Schierer]

I have a 23 ga pin nailer and it does a pretty good job. I generally use hardwood trim and have fount that the pins hold pretty well, but won't hold bowed pieces into the soft framing behind the drywall. In pine trim, the pins will allow your to pull the trim right off the wall with little effort.

[Ken Fitzgerald]

As prescribed by my general contractor, when I trim out the 8 windows in our ranch style home, I will use 18 gauge to nail the jambs together and to attach the casing to the jamb but will drive 1, 23 gauge pin at the mitered corners to hold the miters together while the glue sets. The 23 gauge pins won't be used for structural use.

[Dan Friedrichs]

I have the HF one, and I agree that it's a gem. It's like $19 or something, it works great, and it "feels" like it's a LOT more expensive than it is. The HF pins are crap, though - buy the grex ones.

[Mike Holbrook]

I am thinking about acquiring a pin nailer. I seem to favor off sizes in nail guns. My favorite is one few people seems to like, an angled 15 gauge. I bought the 15 after a good deal of testing 15-20 years ago. I bought it because it was the only nail gun I could find that would sink heads into the new plastic wood as deep as I wanted. I have found that the plastic/wood expands back over the head of a counter sunk small nail head preventing the nail from ever working its way out. I have thousands of feet of decking secured this way and have never had a nail head poke it's ugly head up. I suspect the pin nailer will work similarly? I am a little surprised to read that few people like the 2" 23 gauge nails. Maybe people do not use these devices to hold 3/4-1" stock in place?

I find three guns: Grex, Cadex and Fasco that some calim are all made in the same place with similar parts. The cadex seems to have an additional feature which allows the user to blow air, although I'm not sure I would use a gun to blow with anyway. Any info. on the relative value of any of these devises would be appreciated. I am wondering if the less expensive guns, particularly those that fire 2", tend to send nails off course more often?

Maybe I should think about the 21 guage?

[John TenEyck]

PC 23 gage pin nailer here, too. Only shoots pins up to 1" though, and I often wish it would take longer ones. Great for trim work and building jigs. As several mentioned, keep your fingers well away from the kill zone. I got a nasty surprise twice with it before I learned my lesson. Actually, keep your fingers well away from any pneumatic nailer. I can attest that 18 gage nails hurt even more !

John

[Art Mann]

Maybe 10 years ago, I bought a $10 sale pin nailer from Harbor Freight just to see if such a tool would be useful. I planned to buy a good one if the answer was yes. It did indeed prove to be highly useful. It was so useful that I decided to just use it until it malfunctioned and then replace it. I have been waiting for ten years and about a million pins for that to happen. One drawback to it is there is no real safety mechanism on it and you can shoot people across the room if you want to just by pulling the trigger. Another one is it only does 1 inch or less pins and that limits its usefulness. I'm thinking I may have to drop it from a tall step ladder or something so I can justify a new one.

By the way, I don't recommend HF brand pins.

[Bill Ryall]

+1 for the Bostich. I seem to do miles of small trim on the studio furniture. It was one of the tools that after the first time I used it I was kicking myself for not getting one sooner.

[Ken Fitzgerald]

I bought the Hitachi. It seems to work well in my limited tests.

[Kent A Bathurst]

I actually have two 23 gage pinners...my original one is a Senco Accuset that only shoots a few sizes up to 3/4" long and was acquired a long time ago. It actually can do most of what I need in the shop for projects but was lacking for home improvement tasks. So a few years ago I also bought a Grex that goes up to 1 3/8" fasteners. That one gets the most use...pretty much every project...and generally, it's for either holding on light trim while glue sets or for making temporary jigs that can be torn down cleanly afterward. Great too to have!

me too...except i gave the accuset to a friend .... now he has one when i come to visit....the grex is remarkable, by comparison.....

[David Ragan]

I bought the Hitachi. It seems to work well in my limited tests.

I have the same one, have used a little. Works great, no complaints.

I bought that brand cause rated highest on Amazon (no-I don't buy everything that way, just most things).

Got the 18 gage pinner too. Why? Do you really need to ask?

[Ken Fitzgerald]

David......I have a Senco 15 gauge, a PC 18 gauge....a Dewalt 18 gauge and now the Hitachi 23 gauge......

An explanation........the 15 gauge is a serious finish nailer......the PC 18 gauge was given to me but only drives 5/8-1 3/8" brads.......I bought the Dewalt which drives 2" 18 gauge brads and now I have the Hitachi 23 gauge.

[Jim Becker]

Yea, I really like my 15 gage angle nailer for when "real fasteners" are required for something structural. (Mine is an Accuset by Senco) Most of my work is with the 18 gage brad gun (Accuset) and pinner (Grex) but I have a second 18 gage gun that I got for free with my full head construction gun that I keep handy for alternative lengths as well as a narrow-crown stapler for when that's appropriate. These guns all come in handy for what they individually do well...