I’m a recently retired math teacher who just moved from AZ to CO. We have 34 acres northwest of the little town of Pierce. I’ve built some furniture from quarter sawn oak, but am a rookie when it comes to framing and other general carpentry. I built a 10 by 10 shed on the property and now I want to build a shop/studio apt.(We haven’t been able to sell our house in Arizona yet, so we can’t afford to build larger living quarters.) I bought a pneumatic framing nailer and then went to Lowe’s to get some framing nails. They sold me a box of .131 by 3 1/4 inch nails. When I got home I looked at the nails and the diameter looks more like that of 8d nails. I used 16d common nails for the shed. I called Lowe’s to ask if these nails would meet code. They didn’t know. I couldn’t find any articles on the Fine Homebuilding website, but I did have a book on framing and although it didn’t explain which nails to use, whenever there was a diagram showing the framing of walls or joists they had .131 x 3 inch nails listed next to the 16d nails. If I am building 2×6 walls can I just interchange these depending whether I’m using a framing hammer or a gun? This seems kinda long winded, but it’s my ery first blog. Thanks.
Replies
We use both the air nails you have and 16cc sinkers for framing. Everything we frame is built using those two nails.
I frame with the same nails.
What's your gun, BTW?
And welcome in here, Virgin.
Welcome to the
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Thanks for the help. My gun is a factory reconditioned Bostich F21PL from CPO that I got on the internet for $199. I haven't used it, but am looking forward to trying it out.
See ESR-1539 http://www.icc-es.org/reports/pdf_files/ICC-ES/ESR-1539.pdf
Go to page 30.
Big help! The summary table on page 36 gave me all the information I needed. Thanks.
Spaf1,
Good luck with your retirement. I retired from the Tempe Fire Dept & moved to Vermont 7 years ago. It has been great and I'm so glad to be out of the heat and the traffic congestion.
Everyone has to start somewhere and you've already learned to look around and ask lots of questions! The members of this forum are a great asset!
Mark
IRC 2006 Nailing charts include gun nails. You have to check with your local amendments (may be online with the county ordinances) for exceptions to the code that may exclude gun nails but usually the issues with pneumatic driven fasteners are in hurricane country.
do you know who the authoirty is for your location? Weld County CO http://www.co.weld.co.us/departments/planning/index.html shows their exceptions to the IRC 2006 starting on page 29-4 of Chapter 29 of the Weld County Code I didn't see anything excluding gun nails but a more thorough read may pay you well for future ref.
Oh, and we're not a blog (usually worthless) we're a forum (less worthless). :)
Edited 7/31/2009 7:19 pm ET by john7g