Since we never have enough projects going on, and since we never got any bids on refinishing the attic we decided well, we’ll just do it ourselves.
Being that the house is an 1850’s farm house and that there isn’t a straight wall in it, it won’t matter much if when I refinish the attic that the walls aren’t perfect.
I don’t do drywall. Drywall sucks, you either have what it takes to do drywall or you don’t and I don’t have that genome.
Our attic is 40 feet long and already has drywall up to where the walls meet the rafters. The rafters are the original hand honed wood rafters with some additional wood nailed too it from time to time as those rafters have sagged here and there. We’re gong to branch off of that and create a straight surface to mount some paneling or wainscot or something.
We’ll attempt to keep it looking somewhat like it fits, but we’re not going to kill ourselves or spend a ton of money.
Nailing into those old beams is no fun, no sir. So what do you need? A framing nailer, that’s what. We took some measurements today and headed off to the Depot. I looked at a number of framing nailers. Most would require me to get a larger compressor as well. Then the gentlemen pointed to the Paslode Cordless.
He said we seem to sell a lot of these lately, the construction guys love them. They don’t have to use a compressor. It was on sale but it was still about $100 more than the on sale (lowest priced air driven framing nailer). I picked it up, it wasn’t too heavy. A decent compressor was going to run me well more than $100, probably double that. Then I’d have to lug it around deal with the hoses and the noise.
It uses their fuel cells, and it’s totally portable, no compressor needed. Way cool. I decided to give it a try.
We bought a pack of nails, generic not Paslode brand which were twice the price. The sales associate promised me they’d work just as well. I wasn’t keen on buying a gun that had proprietary nails.
We headed home and proceeded to get to work. First order of business was to charge the battery. This thing has a battery good for 4000 or so nails. The battery runs the fan and ignites’ the charge. Small problem, there wasn’t an AC adapter in the package. Grrrr!.
Claudine was kind enough to run back to the store to exchange it while Michael and I got busy.
During the time she was gone, Micheal and I pounded a couple of the 2×4’s into place and it completely sucked. The pounding just shook dust loose from everywhere, mortar from around the chimneys was falling, it all was no good. Those beams are hard as a rock. Not to mention the bent nails.
About an hour and a half later (with the new nail gun) it had enough of a charge to give it a go. I was mighty impressed. I loaded the Paslode, put the fuel in, set it for the deep setting, put the battery in, and WHAM. Nice, 3 inch nail, through the 2×4 properly sunk and into the beam. It couldn’t be better.
I’ll use this with the barn and other things for sure. If you have one of these, or have used one, or have had any experiences good or bad with Paslode please post them in the comments.
