Of Felt & Fasteners

i hand nailed and framed for 20 years now my right elbow is shot hand nailing is more "fun" and a delivers better product but I recommend the new rofers to use to slow down and use the "guns" with proper technique and when they hit 50 their body will be happpier http://www.rooferscoffeeshop.com/rcs/users/ktrepairs/

Hand nailing works for me. No cap nails though. I use regular felt nails. The 1" eg, since EG can't be used for roofing.

It takes about 6 months of hand nailing every day to get to the point where you can do 4 bundles an hour. I have hand nailed over 20 squares in a day many times, but it is a lot of work. It is easier with a gun for sure, but like I said before, I don't think it is much faster at the end of the month or year, depending on the type of shingling you are doing.

The problem with the old metal round tip nails is that they would fall and always land point up. Very dangerous. They were easier to drive than the plastic cap nails and I think they held better too. When we used to have a crew of 3 or 4 and we had a lot of felt to install, we would just start all of the rolls from the bottom to the top and then get a couple of us out along the bottom of the sheet. one guy would kick out the roll to a guy out 30 or 4o feet depending on the wind, and that man would grab it and stretch it and put it to the line. the rest of the men would then nail hell out of the area where they were for 6 feet or so. If you had a big area to cover, you could do about 10 full rolls in 15 minutes like that. Production work!

About 30 years ago we went to a big one story job and with 22 workers we tore off and felted in about 300 squares in a day. Hot!!

In Florida Where The Sun Shines Damn Near Every Day we have to nail cap nails in the laps every 6 inches and 12 inches in the field to the next nearest fastener. B) :) :) B) Deep Down In Florida Where The Sun Shines Damn Near Every Day

Old School Said: Twil, Have you every thought of using a hammer and nails? That is airless!

We have talked about it.

Twill: You reminded me that I've got a crossfire sitting somewhere around the shop! I'm going to have to give it a try later this week. I got it w/ a trailer full of tools from somebody going out of business.

OS: I saw your post about how you showed everybody up hand nailing. My dad is known to have been one of the fastest in the area(there were a couple faster that he knew of), and he still says once in a while that hand nailing is about the same speed at the end of the day, it's just easier. He still won't agree to try using straight cap nails to see how fast the felt goes down, though. A few years ago he bet $100 that nobody could use a nail gun as fast as he could hand drive them. He lost obviously, but not by too much. You guys w/ the extreme hand banging skills impress me though, because I've always had a gun in my hand for anything more than repairs. I like my fingernails, too.

Twil, Have you every thought of using a hammer and nails? That is "airless!"

Pretty much everything is platic cap nails now. We wused to use 30# felt and the metal round tops. It worked perfectly well. We would nail every other rafter and a few times in the middle and the felt stayed on perfectly. I once nailed on 60 squares of #15 felt and delivered all of the shingles in an hour using that approach. You could hardly get the compressor out and set up in that time now. Go figure.

I sometimes wonder how much if any time is saved by all of the air equipment at the end of the month or year. Much more expensive for sure.

don't like the Stingers either. We've been using Crossfires for years.....but ya need an air hose.

we are Looking for something airless