

If you have ever used wood glue, you know that the glue layer can act as a lubricant and can be very slippery. Pin nailers really shine when used in combination with adhesives. So, what is a pin nailer used for? Following are some of the most common uses of a 23 gauge pin nailer. Video can’t be loaded because JavaScript is disabled: Pin Nailer Overview () 23G Pin Nailer Uses A small selection of battery-powered pin nailers are also available, but the selection is much more limited than for the larger and more versatile battery-powered cousins of the pin nailer, such as the brad nailer or the 16G finish nail gun, of which many different brands and styles are quite easy to come by. On the flip side, headless pins offer relatively lower holding power.Īs a relatively small niche market, there is a fairly small selection of pin nailer products available with the most common type of pinner being pneumatic (uses compressed air rather than electric power) in design. This makes quicker work of things but can also present a safety concern. Instead, pin nailers are often equipped with a double-action trigger and can fire with each pull regardless of whether the tip of the nailer is compressed. This mechanism requires the nozzle tip of the nailer to be completely compressed against a surface prior to pulling the trigger and it must be reset by releasing from the work surface and releasing the trigger prior to each pull. The most obvious and useful benefit of using such a small nail is twofold:ġ) Driving them into the wood with a nailer leaves only the tiniest, hardly visible divot in your workpiece andĢ) The narrow diameter of the pin nails means a greatly reduced likelihood of splitting your wood, especially on very thin and intricate pieces.Īnother unique aspect of using a pin nailer that may be considered either a disadvantage or an advantage, depending on the user, is the fact that pin nailers typically do not incorporate the usual “compress to fire” or “full sequential trigger” safety mechanism that is common with larger nail guns, otherwise known as actuation of the contact bracket.
What are the Benefits of Using 23-Gauge Pins? This “toe nailing” technique will prevent the wood pieces from pulling apart. Tip: To increase the strength of the joint, drive the 23G nails at opposite angles. In fact, the pinned wood joints have enough holding power for most trim work and light-duty woodworking projects though they can not be used for structural applications. That said, contrary to the popular belief, the 23 gauge pin nails hold surprisingly well with sufficient penetration into the wood. This means that the customer base for these tools is also somewhat limited to users such as finish carpenters, cabinet makers, fine woodworking enthusiasts, and the like. For this reason, pin nails are usually used in conjunction with adhesives to provide the bulk of the bond strength. Pin nailers are certainly nice to have on hand for specific tasks, but their use is generally limited to delicate projects and finish-work due to the extremely light holding power of the pin nail bond. The pin nailer is ideal for finishing jobs as the small-sized headless nails leave almost no mark and avoid splitting which is a real problem with hardwood trims. The 23-gauge version is also known as a micro-pin nailer or simply pinner. The 23-gauge pins are about the size of a common sewing pin at 0.025-inches(0.64 mm) in diameter (21-gauge pins are about 0.84 mm) and are called “pins” rather than “nails” partly for this reason, and also because they are often consistent in diameter from top to bottom and often lack the head that other gauges of nails have, though pin nails do also come in varieties that have small heads (“slight-headed”) on them (usually 21 gauge nails).

Pin nailers are the smallest nailers on the market today and typically drive very narrow 23-gauge pin nails into wood, though slightly larger versions also exist at 21G. So what’s someone like me to do? Thankfully, magical little machines exist for this very application, and those machines are called pin nailers. It is tedious and monotonous, and it often feels like I can still see every single mark afterwards, even when others can’t or simply wouldn’t notice, something that many DIYers, makers, craftspeople, and builders can attest to when scrutinizing their own work. There are few things I enjoy less as a type-A perfectionist than filling and sanding the divots made by my finish or brad nailers or dealing with split wood, especially when working with delicate trim materials and veneers.
