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Hardwood Flooring Air Assist Hammer

Melensdad

Melensdad

Jerk in a Hawaiian Shirt & SNOWCAT Moderator
Staff member
The lovely Mrs_B wants a hardwood floor in the dining room to replace the carpet. I'm not sure that I want to tackle the project, but Dargo did it and he survived. So maybe I can too?

I picked this up on Ebay, its a Chinese made tool, but it was cheap. They sell for roughly $130 to $180 depending on how good of a bidder you are :D The local rental place rents them for $60 per day, $120 per week.

I'm helping to install a fairly large floor to learn how to do the job right and to see if I want to do my floor. I figure I can make mistakes and they won't be in my house :yum: When all the projects are over, I'll sell it again on ebay when I'm done and be money ahead when the whole thing is over. Not looking to make money on the tool, but multiple rentals of a tool locally would cost a heck of a lot more than buying this one. It looks like it should work for a couple of floors, which is all it needs to last. The project starts tomorrow.
 

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B_Skurka said:
The lovely Mrs_B wants a hardwood floor in the dining room to replace the carpet.
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Yea, sorry about that. It was DaveNay's idea to smoke the pig and turkeys in that room during the party.:burp:

That puke in the corner ISN'T MINE :whistle:

Take pics as you go!!
 
I'll be interested to see what you think of the cheapo stapler. What type of wood are you nailing?

BC - what no mention of the "other" stain? THAT mess is all you!:smileywac
 
This one is not a stapler, it shoots nails. There are ebay auctions for both types. The nailer seems to sell for a slightly higher price than the stapler.

The floor we are starting tomorrow is oak. I'm hoping it does not split!!! But with a stapler my concern is that if it does not drive the staple all the way in, you can't pound it in with a hammer and have to pull them back out, but with a nail if the air is not adjusted right, you can drive it in the rest of the way with a hammer.
 
Is it driving nails or the funky spikes with the notches on them (can't remember the correct term for them).

You'll know pretty quickly if it's a POS.

Have you used a flooring nailer before? If not, just remember to hit it really hard. The momentum of the hammer strike helps to seat the wood in the groove as well as drive in the nail.
 
On a side note, make sure the flooring is set inside for a couple days before installing. It needs to get acclimatized to the area.
 
bczoom said:
On a side note, make sure the flooring is set inside for a couple days before installing. It needs to get acclimatized to the area.
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Nah, bring it in freezing cold and install it right away. When it warms up it will close up any gaps. :cool2: :whistle:
 
PBinWA said:
...just remember to hit it really hard.
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Oh, believe me, I knocked the dog piss outa mine! :thumb: Boy, did I feel better afterwards!!:tiphat:

Well, not really; my knees hurt like a bitch and my back was killing me for a week...:o
 
Good Luck Bob !!! I use a Rented hand nailer on my floor and it came out great . My neighbor bought the same air assist gun you have in the picture and it was the biggest piece of POO POO I ever used . Use the rental one !!! It is much better .
 
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I'm going to buy or rent this one when I do the rest of the main floor of my house:

"Cleats" is what you want to use. They are the best at resisting pull-out over time.

http://www.toolbarn.com/product/bostitch/MIIIFN/

http://www.amazon.com/Bostitch-MIIIFN-2-Inch-Pnuematic-Flooring/dp/B0000302TH

I had reserved one of these for the last floor I was going to do but it wasn't returned in time for me. So I had to use the Bostitch stapler. It was OK but it was hard on the tongues of the wood.

Your back will hurt - take 3 advil(ibuprofen) every 3-4 hours during the day tomorrow. It will help keep the pain down to a minimum. Get drunk and sit in a hot tub when done - the alcohol and heat will help relax your muscles. You wife could help you relax too but make sure it is all about you and you don't do any work!:thumb:
 
PBinWA said:
Your back will hurt - take 3 advil(ibuprofen) every 3-4 hours during the day tomorrow.
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Just for tomorrow?? Hell, it took me three damn weeks of working my ass off to get my hardwood floor finished by myself. I forget (likely on purpose), but I think I put down somewhere around 600 sq. ft. It was the inside of the closets, the short hall to the master bath, and the dormers that took so much time with all the cuts. Here Bob, get yourself a nice Christmas present. This is the saw I used Hitachi saw that made things oh so much easier and all the cuts perfectly square. After I finished the floor, I cleaned up the saw, put it on the shelf, and haven't wanted to look at it since. :o
 
Yeah, it took me 2-3 days to do a small room with a bay window and some other "fun" angles. The wider the plank the better. Less cuts, less nailing.
 
Well guys I am just the "helper" on this project but the wood flooring has been in the house for the past week, the rental store is open all day tomorrow if the ebay cheap gun doesn't work, and my participation is largely a test to see if I want to do this project in my house. All the tools are in place, all the materials in place. It should be a good learning experience for me.

So we shall see what I learn tomorrow and Sunday???
 
Well the floor is about 1/6 done!!! Good thing I was there to help :hide:

Actually it did go pretty smoothly, the tool worked very well, we just worked slow because we had to work around some odd cuts. But I think it will progress much faster.

I also learned that this is a job that I feel comfortable doing in my own house. So it looks like the lovely Mrs_B will get her dining room floor.

As for the gun, it would be nice if it had some sort of depth adjustment, but other than that it performed pretty well. There were a couple nail jams. The best tool today had to be the Craftsman gel knee pads!
 

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Glad to hear it's going well.

B_Skurka said:
The best tool today had to be the Craftsman gel knee pads!
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Then why is the guy in the pic not wearing them? :confused2: :hide:
 
bczoom said:
Then why is the guy in the pic not wearing them? :confused2: :hide:
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Because I had them on when I took the picture of the guy who was not lucky enough to have his own pair! :5boobs:
 
The cheap Chinese piece of crap gun broke yesterday evening. :mad:

I didn't know about it until I called over to find out what time I needed to show up today to continue the work. To the rescue today is another friend, who showed up with a real brand floor nailer. So progress is continuing, but only because someone else was able to save the day. :cool2:

And now all the bad things I've ever thought about the cheap Chinese tools has been confirmed again. They are junk. Live and learn? :smileywac
 
B_Skurka said:
The cheap Chinese piece of crap gun broke yesterday evening. :mad:

I didn't know about it until I called over to find out what time I needed to show up today to continue the work. To the rescue today is another friend, who showed up with a real brand floor nailer. So progress is continuing, but only because someone else was able to save the day. :cool2:

And now all the bad things I've ever thought about the cheap Chinese tools has been confirmed again. They are junk. Live and learn? :smileywac
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Told ya so !!!:hide: :yankchain:
 
I'm shocked!!! You know how fond I am of cheap tools. :tiphat: I catch crap about my aversion to junk tools on that other place all the time. You know, if you posted that a cheap tool broke over there, some dimwit would point out to you that you didn't spend much to start with so just buy another. :pat: Morons I tell ya, morons...
 
Bad News ~ Good News

The good news is that the guy is going to give a full refund for the tool.
The bad news is that he is not refunding shipping charges.

OH well. Live and learn. And I learned again that CHEAP CHINESE NO-NAME TOOLS are not worth their meager price. It was shear luck that 2 other guys showed up with a Bostich gun the next day.
 
OUCH . . . spent the day putting down more oak flooring. My rheumatoid arthritis is really acting up now. But the flooring went down without too much trouble, in part thanks to the high quality rental gun we were using. This one was some brand that I never heard of, but had quite a few nice features and a big sticker on the gun that said PROUDLY MADE IN THE USA. It work flawlessly.
 
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