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I need to build three large fence panels. They are slightly odd shapes so I'm going to build them in situ, into existing concrete posts. Feather edge vertical slats and 2*1 battens.
I was tempted to buy a cheap nailer or staple gun. Clark do one for £50 or there's an SGS equivalent for only £20. These only do 18 gauge nails or staples which I'm worried might be a bit skinny. Any thoughts? I can't justify the cost of a 1st fix nailer. Might be worth using the skinny staples just to hold things in place and then go around and screw it together afterwards?
I did similar and used a drill and impact driver to screw them together. Probably took slightly longer but I already had those and had no other use/space for a nail gun. You could hire one if you really want to nail rather than screw.
Fyi, I used a piece of wood cut to the width of the visible section of each feather edge board to speed things up and make sure the overlap was consistent.
Three panels? Treat yourself to a new hammer.
Use the correct nails and hammer them in, don't bother with screws.
Years ago I was roped into helping our elderly neighbour making in-situ panels with her son (because the concrete posts were wonky and impossible to fit new panels).
With my chop saw and his puny nail gun it was surprisingly quick and easy. A hammer might work, but will make a racket and once into the middle of the panel might start dislodging previous boards as everything flexes. If you have access to both sides and a helper they could push something solid (sledge hammer head etc) opposite where you are hammering.
Yeah my worry with hammering was shaking the whole thing to bits when I'm in the middle of the panel!
Unused a hammer on a 10 meter run at home, a nail gun sure would of been quicker but it's a one off job so I didn't bother. IIRC if you wanna be anal using nails and a hammer may split their way into the feather edge where a a nail gun will punch through - you could blunt all your nails on a disc but that would be mind numbing.
Most useful tip a had a a noob was to make a spacer jig to ensure exact horizontal spacing and just use a spirit level every so often.
EDIT: mine was cant rail not panels.
Nail gun every time, for the reasons above. As I've got a compressor already I bought a cheap air nailer, works a treat, is lightweight and reliable.
+1 for the spacer cut to size, I went posh and had a small stopper batten on the end of it so I could just shove the lath in under the last one one handed, then bosh with the nailer.
I also occasionally checked for vertical as whilst the spacer should keep things straight laths aren't cut perfectly.
Three panels? Treat yourself to a new hammer
Could you not have hammered all the nails in in the time it would take to compare nail gun specs, etc.
One off job (just 3 normal sized panels?) Hammer or screws.
Sounds like you're trying to self-justify a toy that's probably going to sit in a cupboard doing nothing afterwards.
Amazingly people made very very good fence panels long before nail guns were a thing!
😉
If you have a compressor then a Stanley Bostitch palm hammer <£40 does any nail.
I'm actually not that bothered about new toys. It's only £20-30 and I'd get shot of it afterwards. Reasons for are the difficulty of holding all the bits aligned and knocking nails in single handed, and shaking the panel too much. I don't have anyone around to brace behind it unfortunately.
The actual question was about the size of the nails - 18G being too small or not?
Ta 🙂
18G being too small or not?<br /><br />
totally too small. There be got no real holding power. I use them to pin stuff to the Cnc tapir because it only takes a light tap on that side to pop back off again
they’ll also just rot away
Blunting nails so they dont split wood is a good idea, dont need to gring them though, just tap the point with a hammer, does the same job, blunts the end so it punches through the wood fibres, the sharp tip of a nail can seperate them causing the timber to split along the grain.
I have a cheap titan electric nail gun. Only does piddly little nails but they're for holding a fence together (or in my case the original need was for doing the wall off the car-port turned into a garage.
It's great. So much less faff as you can do everything quickly and one handed, rather than needing 4 hands to hold the wood in place, hold the nail and swing the hammer.