My DA250A 15-gage nailer went bust yesterday. The plastic safety damper that is a positive stop for the wire safety broke, and the safety spring went missing in the dirt.
Parts can be readily ordered, but how readily repairable is this gun?
The owner manuals are useless when it comes to doing gun disassemble, repair, and reassembly.
What do you do?
Replies
My guess is your best bet will be to download the exploded parts view off their website. Operators manuals these days have nothing useful in 'em except stuff to make the lawyers stop having coniptions.
I've rebuilt nail guns before but not that model. Same sort of accident happened to my old boat anchor Senco III; it tried to spit out two at once and blew the nosepiece right off the gun instead. Went flying across the floor deck and off into a pile of fresh dirt from the excavation. It was getting dark and raining, too, so after five minutes we gave up looking for it and I finished nailing by hand.
Got lucky tho and the Senco distributor in MTL found one even for a gun that old. Shipped it up to me by Puro. It was a five minute job to intall.
End of the story: Six months later the HO calls me. "I found that missing piece of your nailgun."
"Great!" I said. "Where was it?"
"In the grass; we must have seeded right over it," he said. "But it's in the living room now. I hit it with my lawnmower and sent it flying through the picture window."
"Ummm...," I said, "I guess I'll be right over, won't I, heh, heh...."
Dinosaur
A day may come when the courage of men fails,when we forsake our friends and break all bonds of fellowship...
But it is not this day.
I often go to:
http://www.toolpartsdirect.com
when I need to repair tools, especially air nailers. They have an awesome selection of downloadable schematics for most name brand tools, that help you order the right parts and also help put that tool back together (the one laying in pieces all over the workbench).
Occasionally, when an individual replacement part is too expensive, I've bought a used or even broken one on ebay and cobbled the two together to make one good tool. If you do need to order a part, you might as well add on some of those other small things - "o" ring kits, replacement rubber nosepieces, etc. - while you're paying for postage anyway.
Good luck,
Alan
I take all repairs to the supplier I've been buying from for over 30 yrs. We go in the back and if not a stock part, they loan me something to use till they get it. Couldn't be easier. And now that they're only 2 mi.'s away, almost illegal.A great place for Information, Comraderie, and a sucker punch.
Remodeling Contractor just outside the Glass City.
Quittin' Time
Cal, I got that beat.
I call the nail supplier and he comes and fixes the gun immediately. If he doesn't have a part for it, he gives us a loaner if needed (we have plenty of spares). He'll usually show up in a couple of days if the part had to be ordered.
Sometimes we've walked up to him and dumped five tools at a time on him and he stays and fixes them all 90% of the time. The guy is very busy, works long hours, delivers a lot of nails and still has a good personality! I think I'd jump off a tall building.
blue
Online buying or bigbox purchases may save a buck now, but when we find a quality supplier the real savings is/are realized. If it should ever get to the point that all local concerns are pushed out, we be in deep ####.
The clincher with my supplier is their personal side. I'm more than just a customer walking in the door. And the deals they give me equal or beat any I've seen or heard about. I never can say enough about this operation. You know my email name, it's certainly not from my stature, but from what I can make happen. It's backing like this that affords me the opportunity.
But what the hell do I know, this from a dumb carpenter.A great place for Information, Comraderie, and a sucker punch.
Remodeling Contractor just outside the Glass City.
Quittin' Time
BIG "Getter Done" CALSTEW..... I like it.
We see eye to eye and you ain't no 6 footer neither. If only there was a bit of that git'erdone around here. Never in a million years.A great place for Information, Comraderie, and a sucker punch.
Remodeling Contractor just outside the Glass City.
Quittin' Time
Ahh! The joys of working in a location where there are nail suppliers that deliver, repair shops that will fix air nailers, stores that sell them with shops in back, vendors that will do loaners, yadda, yadda, yadda.
You keep saying stuff like that... Exactly where DO you live/work? Iraq?
I'm in Lake Placid, NY, population 3,500 souls. While we have plenty of lumberyards that supply the area, one of which is in town, two sell tools, but offer no service at all.
The nearest town with any services beyond what we have here is a one-hour drive away.
Authorized repair centers for any of the big name tools are in Albany, NY, a two and a half hour drive. There are resources in Vermont, which is closer in miles, but a trip there requires a ferry ride and a roundtrip toll that is expensive and time consuming.
I'm getting quite good at mailing and UPS-ing stuff in and out, tool purchases, tool parts, repairs, fasteners, all sorts of stuff not available locally or only for ridiculous prices. For my next trick I think I'm going to get a pilot's license and a share of a plane.
>> I'm in Lake Placid, NY, population 3,500 souls << I don't know - never been there, but still I have trouble believeing that there are next to no services in your area like you keep saying. No need to have factory service reps. My place services "all" makes/models. Not sure how "authorized" they are - they just fix my stuff. Havn't you told us that there are no insulation contractors, no engineers and now no tool service? Re another thread, I Googled "insulation contractor" and "Lake Placid, NY" and it gave me 10... How long you been there? I find that when I move to a new area it takes a while to find the "good places" and contractors to get what I need. Many I get by word of mouth. As a home builder/GC that's what it's all about - connections... "no man is an island"... It's not only what I know but who I know... Isn't Gene Davis in your area? Maybe he could hook you up with some various contractors/suppliers/etc. Although I live near a medium sized city I have 2 neighborhoods I'm building in and one is in BF Egypt which is 45 miles out but still I can get what I need out there. I know there are still home builders out there who "do it all" but most new home customers aren't willing to wait a year or more for a product - unless you are talking > $mil... Carolina dollars which myght well translate into 1.5 $mil NY dollars...
Sorry for the tangent...
Matt, he IS gene "change my screen name" davis.A great place for Information, Comraderie, and a sucker punch.
Remodeling Contractor just outside the Glass City.
Quittin' Time
LOL!It's Never Too Late To Become What You Might Have Been
[email protected]
Who can keep up?
And I would change it again, Calvin. I would go back to using my name, but under the new Prospero, I cannot figure out how.
If you email Mark, he'll take care of it.
But hell, you've been this one for awhile, we'll get used to it.A great place for Information, Comraderie, and a sucker punch.
Remodeling Contractor just outside the Glass City.
Quittin' Time
<If you email Mark, he'll take care of it.>Ha, ha, haaaaaaaa... "what's in a name?" d'oh!
I guess it's just one of those "who" you knows.A great place for Information, Comraderie, and a sucker punch.
Remodeling Contractor just outside the Glass City.
Quittin' Time
I kinda like Stinger!
But if he keeps it we're gonna make him tell us the story behind it!!
Beats Imawannabe by a mile don'tcha think?
EricIt's Never Too Late To Become What You Might Have Been
[email protected]
Micro was cute.
So gene, what's the origin of the stinger handle?A great place for Information, Comraderie, and a sucker punch.
Remodeling Contractor just outside the Glass City.
Quittin' Time
Micro and Wannabe came from right here at Breaktime. Stinger is from long ago, about the time of the first moon landing. I was with a big design-build industrial contractor.
We're doing a big huge expansion for Hammermill Paper, through a very cold and snowy winter, right on the lake in Erie, PA. I am in charge of the survey crews, all line and grade for excavation, footings, mechanical tunnels, formbuilding, and steel erection. The guys are all members of the operating engineers. Very witty, not too energetic, especially if we've got to dig out our points from under three feet of snow. We had a lot of laughs while working and after hours, and my peculiar uses of sarcasm earned me the name. It was one of those jobs where everybody got named something.
After that job, the company moved me to another paper job, a machine rebuild, at Lock Haven, PA. One of my crew chiefs from Erie called ahead and the nickname lived on, at least through that next job.
Matt, there are contractors here building $10 million dollar vacation homes, but the nearest commercial center of any size is an hour away, and it is a one-Wal-Mart town. There is a little remodeling getting done here and there, but virtually nothing being built as an affordable year-round house. We really are remote. Check out the maps, count the roads, and you'll see.
The two lumberyards that stock and sell contractor tools are the only place to get such things. They do offer service, but it all goes out to guys who travel up from two to three hours south, and come around once a week.
Guys that sell and deliver nails? Forgetaboutit!
Insulation contractors come here from places at least an hour away, and some make one-way trips in here of four hours travel to do work. There really are no locals.
To get the kinds of goods and services for residential contracting you have, a market needs to exist. It is just not here. About the only thing getting built here are high-end vacation homes, built in the Adirondack great camp style, and you can count the currently active jobs on your fingers and toes, and you'll have one foot left unused.
Here, from off the top of my head, is a short list of the trade and supply specialties that are "imported" in from places a half-day's travel away, just not available here because of no need and no market. Sheet metal work, insulation, metal roofing, EIFS supply and install, real stucco, structural steel, tool service, blueboard and skimcoat plastering, and blade sharpening.
On the other hand, the mountain scenery is awesome, the roads are relatively bare of any traffic, flyfishing is superb, black bears wander through my property regularly, the coyote and loon calls can wake you up, and if snow is good, the skiing is to die for.
Oh - OK - sorry Gene - guess I'm not keeping up...
I changed my screen name during that last "you must re-register" but always signed my posts prior to that so thought at least some of the poeple knew who I was. I did loose all my history (subscribed threads) but it's still "charging me" for you used space for pictures I posted - go figure....
Sounds like a beautiful place to live up there and I've heard that from other people too. My sis and BIL who live in PA go camping up there.
I see what you mean though... no demand, no supply. Sounds like it might be a hard place to make a living... I bet you still make a weekly or bi-weekly pilgramage to the big box store :-)
BTW - hows it going with the house with the very wide overhangs and the hip roof? I would guess you would be in the finishing stages now... Duh - that's why you need your trim gun...
Blue: OK - I don't have you beat... :-) But I've been around here long enough to know that isn't possible (-:
The contractor sales company I deal with (and buy my nails from) does my repairs for the cost of parts only. Maybe I'd get on-site service but I don't buy enough nails (by a long shot) to get onsite delivery since all I do now a days is mostly punch work. My parts only repairs might be partially based on the fact that I buy all my doorknobs, mirrors, bath hardware, wire closet shelving ,etc, from them. I'm quite happy with the situation.
Stinger: BTW - for a while there PC was in the process of being bought out and PC parts were hard to get. That was about 4 months ago and I think it is all resolved now.
I have that same 15 ga trim gun and it's a little hard for me to picture what went wrong with yours but my guess is that it would be easy to DIY the repair you describe. I had the nail follower spring get screwed up on mine (still worked) and after probably 12 years of use and not as much oiling as I should have it blew a seal so I took it for the parts only repair.
We've got the same set-up with our nail supplier up here. I chirp Tony on the Nextel two-way and he swoops in to save the day. Only down side is that he fills the service van up with the latest eye-catching goodies before he stops by the site.... I always spend more than the cost of the repair. He's a better business man than I. He brings a tool store right to my site and leaves it wide open while he fixes my guns. The tempation is just too strong.
I know the routine Diesel, but since I don't want more tools (I want less), he cant entice me.
In fact, my reluctance to buy new stuff usually ends up in him offereing me some fairly good deals, which I most often say no to too!
The last Hitachi stapler I bought cost me $175 and the carcass of one Paslode (someone ran a saw through the body), which he had pretty much pilfered for parts to make me a good one.
Lots of times, we've bought nailguns for $100 if we buy ten boxes of nails. Well, we ALWAYS buy ten boxes or more of nails every time he stops, so that wasn't a really big thing to absorb!
It's nice having great service and I pity those that have to jump through hoops.
blue
Must have something to do with age and wisdom. I'm like a racoon.... I just can't let go of a shiny object once I grab on.
I call the nail supplier and he comes and fixes the gun immediately.
Ditto.
Thanks. I need PC parts, and that site said that all PC parts were specially ordered, so I found another site: https://www.dewaltservicenet.com/ServiceNet/logon.asp
These guys have everything in stock, at lower prices.
Gene,
I had that gun, broke twice in the first year.
Drive pin was more than 1/2 the cost of a new gun.
I ditched it (gave a new drive pin to Sphere!) and bought a Bostitch.
Been happy ever since.
Eric
It's Never Too Late To Become What You Might Have Been
[email protected]
You just prolonged my agony..LOl I been happy with CU's Paslode since..shhs, don't tell him. Spheramid Enterprises Architectural Woodworks
" it is your reflection , silly" ..Dare I say? Ian DG..
So I gave ya parts and it's still crap??
Hang it in a tree and shoot at it.
At least you'll get a little satisfaction out of it.It's Never Too Late To Become What You Might Have Been
[email protected]
Stinger,
Unfortunately you don't have repair shops or a guy that can come out and fix your guns like I do around here and others have mentioned. So you have no other choice but to try and order parts that will be shipped to and you fix your own gun. In the meantime you could be waiting days and days without using a gun until the parts get there.
So you have a few options while you wait for parts. You go rent a gun. Go buy another gun. Or nail by hand.
I didn't read it all yet..but can attest, trash it. They are junk.
Spheramid Enterprises Architectural Woodworks
" it is your reflection , silly" ..Dare I say? Ian DG..