Nail Gun Views
A nail gun, nailgun or nailer is a type of tool used to drive nails into wood or some other kind of material. It is usually driven by electromagnetism, compressed air (pneumatic), highly flammable gases such as butane or propane, or, for powder-actuated tools, a small explosive charge. Nail guns have in many ways replaced hammers as tools of choice among builders.
Nail guns do not use individual fasteners. Instead, the fasteners are mounted in long strips (similar to a stick of staples) or collated in a paper or plastic carrier, depending on the design of the nailgun. Some full head nail guns, especially those used for pallet making and roofing, use long plastic or wire collated coils. Some strip nailers use a clipped head so the nails can be placed closer together, which facilitates less frequent reloading. Industrial nailers designed for use against steel or concrete may have a self-loading action for the explosive caps, but most require nails to be loaded by hand. Nail guns vary in the length and gauge (thickness) of nails they can drive.
Another type of fastening commonly found in construction is the strap fastening which is roughly analogous to the large head clout nail. These are used in conjunction with a strap shot nailer (or positive placement nailer UK) to fix metalwork such as joist hangers, corner plates, strengthening straps, etc. to timber structures. They differ from conventional nailers in that the point of the fastening is not sheathed so it can be exactly positioned before firing the nail gun.
A variation on the nail gun is the palm nailer which is a lightweight handheld pneumatic nailer that straps to the hand. It is convenient for working in tight spaces where a conventional nailer will not fit and is flexible enough to drive either short nails into metal straps or six inch nails into timber. By repeated hammer action (of around 40 hits per second) the fastener is driven into the material by a more constant palm pressure (as opposed to a conventional nailgun which drives the nail against the inertia of the nailgun itself).