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Step 1
Know how pneumatic nail guns work. Powered by air pressure from a small compressor, these nail guns use a valve and piston operation to drive the nail out of the tip and into the wood or other material. After one nail fires, the piston recoils and fires very quickly. These guns are very high speed but not very high tech. They’re easy to use with just a little bit of practice.
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Step 2
Know the two basic types of nailers that are most commonly used. Coil type nailers use magazine style rolls of nails that are on long flexible strings and joined together on wires. Coil nailers can have up to 300 nails loaded into a round magazine on the nailer at one time. The other type is a stick style that uses paper wire or plastic to hold the nails in strips that feed into a long magazine in a strip that holds twenty to forty nails at a time.
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Step 3
Know how the nailers fire. Some nails release one nail with each pull of the trigger. This is the safest and easiest to use for most do-it-yourselfers. The second nail gun has a rapid fire trigger that can easily release two nails with one pull. These require a lot more practice to get them to operate as you intend. There are nail guns on the market that have adjustable firing capability so you can choose the firing style that you’re comfortable using. The advantage to these is that you can learn to use the gun slowly and speed it up as you gain proficiency.
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Step 4
Know the advantages of pneumatic nail guns. Besides the obvious high speed advantage, there’s also a second advantage to this piece of equipment. The nails are held together on the strips by an adhesive or resin that coats the nail’s shaft. When the nail gun fires a nail the resin lubricates it, making it drive in easier. It also helps to secure it by its adhesive properties. Nails driven in by a nail gun stay put much, much longer than hand driven nails ever will. A nice advantage if you’re building something like a deck or a house addition that you want to stay up forever. Another advantage is that they don’t leave hammer marks. They don’t destroy wood or nails which makes for less money wasted and they go in cleanly without any marks around them which makes for less patch up work later.
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Step 5
Know that with a little experience, you should be able to use any of the nail guns without a hitch. Remember your eye goggles. The greatest safety factor to remember is that you need to be at your best when using these guns. They have a tremendous amount of driving power and there have been operator accidents which resulted in nails being stuck into all kinds of body parts. Pay attention, work when you’re rested and use only nails that your gun is made to use. Nearly all accidents with power tools are preventable.
