OK, so I am a tool junky. I can't help myself. I was at Lowes the other evening and I picked up a neumatic palm nailer. This is going to be a handy gadget, but they all are, aren't they?
It looks vaguely like a chemistry flask, kind of conical with a stem / neck at the top. It is pretty hefty, but fits in your hand pretty easily. I was surprised, but there was very little in the instruction manual on how it actually worked. I was pretty scared of it so approached my first experiment with care. I tapped a couple of nails into a board with a regular, old fashioned, hammer, how quaint. Just enough to hold them up. I then eased the neck of the palm nailer over the head of the nail. I gently slid it further down until the head of the nail rested against the piston inside. I then slowly added pressure. There was a sharp pop. I pulled the palm nailer back and checked out the nail. It was definitely a bit further into the wood. I repeated the process and this time I held the pressure for a bit longer and heard several loud pops. The nail was going down fast. I again slid the neck of the nailer over the head of the nail and pushed down. Several more pops and the nail was driven into the board. I approached the next nail and in one rapid fire, machine gun like, series of loud pops, drove the nail straight into the board. No muss no fuss. You would have to be pretty careful when using this on finishing nails, but it does come with a finishing nail head. I was driving 3 inch nails into a chunk of 4X4 and it did ding up the 4X4 pretty noticeably. I am quickly gathering a number of neumatic tools. Guess I will next have to bury a 100 gallon high pressure tank in the yard with a kick-ass compressor. *GRIN* -- Blue skies. Dan Rossi Carnegie Mellon University. E-Mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Tel: (412) 268-9081
