I quit using pneumatic nailers for residential fences and went back to hand nailing

Everyone in this sub swears by air nailers for speed but I just cant get behind them for cedar picket fences. Last summer I took a job in north Texas and brought both setups just in case. I ended up using a hammer and galvanized ring shanks for the whole 800 foot run. Yeah it took longer but I had zero split boards and zero callbacks. My partner kept giving me grief about it until the heat started causing some of those air nailed boards to warp and pop off. He was replacing his mistakes while my section still looked solid. Has anyone else found that hand nailing actually holds up better in extreme weather conditions?

3 comments

3 Comments

oliviahenderson12d ago

Oh man I gotta push back on this a little. I've been running air nailers on cedar fences for like 8 years now and the trick is just having your pressure dialed in right for the density of the wood. If you're blasting them in at full force yeah you'll split everything but if you're smart about it you can match the speed of a hammer any day without the issues.

tara7459d ago

Yeah totally agree with you on that @oliviahenderson, dialing in the pressure is half the battle. It's like that thing where people expect tools to just work perfect out of the box no matter what, but really everything in life takes a little fine tuning. Like I've noticed the same thing with my phone battery or even just learning a new recipe - you gotta figure out the right settings for what you're working with or it'll mess up every time. So many people just crank it to max and wonder why shit breaks lol.

mason84712d ago

Dropping the pressure down around 70-80 psi makes a huge difference on softwoods like cedar, stops the splitting dead in its tracks. Once you get the hang of reading the wood grain and adjusting the angle slightly you can sink them clean every time. Eight years of practice definitely beats someone just grabbing a nailer and blaming the tool for bad results.