I made a couple of impulse purchases today

First was a MacAlister cordless nail gun for £50. Looks like they are
brand new to B&Q and instead of firing a clip of nails like a
traditional gun, they take any single nail from 40mm to 150mm, so I
thought it would be a good tool. How wrong.

Instead of it working like I would have expected - 'bang' and the nail
goes in, it works like a hammer drill and essentially vibrates the nail
in. Anyway it is crap and is going back tomorrow. It was OK with a
40mm clout nail into endgrain, but no good with a 3" round head into
the side of some softwood timber. And it takes ages to even get part
way in as it rattles away. I really can't see the point or the benefit
of using it

Waste of time and money.

Second was a Stanley Project Master Bench. Like a B&D Workmate, but it
has wheels and can be used as a sack truck for tool boxes etc.

Looked OK on the box in the shop, but after assembling it it seems like
there is too much plastic and I wonder how easily the plastic bits will
crack - including the main worktop? Another thing, part of the
telescopic legs have excessive free play and the whole lot shakes when
you try to cut some timber on it.

And from the Stanley brochure there is an intergral plug socket for
three power tools to connect to. But it seems that this is for the US
market, and we get a blanking plate with some conversion tables on it
instead. WTF did they do that for?

I like the concept though, so will sort the rattlely legs out and fit
my own plug sockets. And its £50 so is unusually cheaper than anywhere
else.

dg

dg wrote:
I made a couple of impulse purchases today

First was a MacAlister cordless nail gun for £50. Looks like they are
brand new to B&Q and instead of firing a clip of nails like a
traditional gun, they take any single nail from 40mm to 150mm, so I
thought it would be a good tool. How wrong.

I've been through half a dozen nail guns - all crap. Thanks for the tip.



--
Dave
The Medway Handyman
www.medwayhandyman.co.uk
01634 717930
07850 597257

On 2006-11-02 00:17:10 +0000, "The Medway Handyman"
said:

dg wrote:
I made a couple of impulse purchases today

First was a MacAlister cordless nail gun for £50. Looks like they are
brand new to B&Q and instead of firing a clip of nails like a
traditional gun, they take any single nail from 40mm to 150mm, so I
thought it would be a good tool. How wrong.

I've been through half a dozen nail guns - all crap. Thanks for the tip.

Meaning electric ones?

I've had a go with a few of these and am inclined to agree - not terribly good.

If you want something that will work sensibly and reliably, then
pneumatic ones will do, but look at
manufacturers such as Senco, Porter Cable, Bostitch and Hitachi. I
have a mixture of Senco and PC guns ranging from a small Senco 22ga pin
nailer (used for fine work to pin things invisibly while gluing,
through 15,16,18ga PC nailers for general work to a Senco framing
nailer for large stuff. No problems with any of them and they get
quite a bit of use. They will run from a tiny portable compressor
because little air is needed.

The other product of choice for site work is the Paslode range. These
are cordless, working with an impulse from explosion of a small gas
charge.