Strip Building Fastners

[hulsey51]

I'm new to the forum, and did a search on this forum that gave a source for plastic nails for pneumatic edge fastening of strips. I'm looking at doing a Nigel Iren's King Alfred sailboat. The edge fastening with plastic nails makes sense to me, and I've used small ringshank bronze nails (by hand) for other projects and they would work great as well (better if someone sold a pneumatic version for a gun). I'm not interested in Stainless Steel, but would think Monel ringshank (pneumatic hopefully) would be as good as bronze. That's all edge nailing. Anyone know of a source for pneumatic ringshank nails in Monel or bronze? Many years ago, when I was framing houses, they were pitching airgun staples for framing, big 3" narrow crown staples with glue on the legs. Destruction testing showed better performance than nails actually. When working with relatively hard woods (central american mahogany strips or Alaskan yellow cedar strips) I would think a narrow crown long staple fastner would have much less of a likelihood of splitting the ends where you fasten to frames, keel, and bow stem. Anybody know of long (2" at least) narrow crown monel or bronze pneumatic staples? Thanks

[Raggi_Thor]

You could try the composite nails from Raptor,
www.raptornails.com

[cudashark]

I e-mailed Raptor and they sent me a sample pack. I used them in my Porter Cable guns. They tested well I especially liked the 18 g. I tested them with Hundoran Mahogany and White Oak. Held suprisingly well. I plan on using it on my cold molded hull.

Q.? When you are cold molding a hull and their are some perminant ribs do you epoxy the first layer of veneer and staple to them or do you use a bedding compound like 3M 5200?

Thanks

[Raggi_Thor]

I would use epoxy everywhere.

[cudashark]

Thank You Ragnar.

Once agan you have helped out...

Ray

[Raggi_Thor]

Well, there are certainly other opinions :-)
Maybe if the frames are very strong (stiff) and the skin is very thin (flexible) you would use 3M or SikaFlex or similar.

[hulsey51]

Could you help me out with the gauge conversion. How long a nail are we talking about and how big around. What kind and size of head do they have (T-Head?). Are the sides smooth or ribbed?

But mainly what thickness of Honduran mahogany did you use them on. That's of particular interest to me because I'm looking at using Honduran Mahogany for strip planking (a local lumberyard used to stock 3" X 3" X 20' stock for local commercial bay fisherman to make their own pushpoles....now not in demand with the lighter fiberglass ones getting cheaper).

thanks, Bill

[cudashark]

Dear Hulsey 51,

If you go to your local Home Depot and ask to see the Pneumatic nail selection the packaging will say 18g, 16g and so forth. I routenly use an 18 gauge for wood under 1/2 in that will tend to split easly. That is 1/2 in square. The Mahogany I tested the Raptor 18 g was onlt 1/8 in thick and the white oak the mahogany was being nailed to was 3 inches. Raptor also sent some 16 gaude but this is too big for cold molding which is the application I was interested in. I might add that you may concider shopping around on that mahogany for something that is a little wider if you intend the wood to be bright. ahh clear finished..

Ray