Update on that framing job in Portland I posted about last month

So I got a lot of pushback for saying we should stick with traditional hammers instead of those fancy nail guns for residential framing. Well last week we finished a 3 story townhouse in SE Portland. My crew used hammers and my buddy's crew used guns. We were neck and neck on time but my guys had way fewer misses and we only had to replace 2 bent nails total. His crew spent like 20 minutes fixing nail jams and one gun blew a seal. I'm not saying guns are bad but for smaller jobs I still think a 20oz Estwing is the better call. Has anyone else had a similar experience with speed vs reliability?

3 comments

3 Comments

ninal9111d ago

Ngl, that's exactly what I found when I tried switching over too.

abbyr9611d ago

Used to be all about nail guns, thought hammers were old school and slow. But after seeing this play out in real time, my bad. That peace of mind from not dealing with jams and blown seals sounds worth its weight in gold on a smaller build. Bent nails are way easier to deal with than air tool headaches, for real. Still gonna keep my gun for big jobs but you might have converted me for the tight stuff.

jake_martin1611d ago

See that all the time in other trades too... people keep upgrading gear when sometimes the old basics just work better for what you're actually doing.