Pro Tool Reviews: Cord cutting is all the rage lately, whether it’s from the cable company or on your power tools. Just like the liberation you feel when you cease to pay $150 a month for 15 minutes of commercials per hour, the ability to work without being tethered to a cord or hose and compressor is exhilarating. I always welcome the opportunity to test a lithium-ion powered tool that I’ve traditionally used as an electric or pneumatic one. So it is with the Porter-Cable 20V Max 18 Gauge Brad Nailer – a tool type that I use all the time for trim work, especially punch list jobs.
3 comments:
More cordless tools! Yay! I will say though, from the main article thumbnail, that brad nailer really does look pretty hefty. Maybe I'm just used to the mechanical simplicity of our pneumatic tools at school, but having an air hose almost seems preferable to hefting the bulk of this tool around. On the other hand, I was intrigued by the depth of drive dial. Not having to walk over to the air regulator in order to adjust the PSI and indirectly how deep you are driving your fasteners is pretty cool. Being able to just adjust a dial on-board the tool is a real time saver in my opinion. Also cool that the unit comes with LED lights, similar to our drills.
Like the reviewer mentioned, I could see this tool being used for finishing touches and tying up loose ends. But I can't help but wonder that for 8 hours of brad nailing, if you would rather want a pneumatic tool.
This is not a new tool, in fact, I knew about battery nail guns before I knew about pneumatic ones. I think nail guns are always a pain working in a job site because you have to get the compressor, a hose and a gun. No matter what, it is a big set up if you need to just tack up some molding. A lot of these cordless nail guns have air cartridges that are often pretty expensive so it is nice to see another model without having to use those cartridges. I like that this tool has though about it all with depth of drive and tool free jam clearance. It also can fire 2” nails which I believe is longer than most models. I do not think anyone would pick a battery gun over an air gun but for little jobs is very nice to have no strings attached.
Oh, how I love my tool reviews. Porter-Cable, in particular, is one of my favorites. For all the times that I've used their products I have always been pleased with the outcome. The build quality has always held up to normal shop abuse and you get a pretty good bang for your buck as far as value goes. I have never had the opportunity to use this tool in particular but I have used their pneumatic staplers on numerous occasions and have never been upset with the final product. I am assuming that you will get a slightly different result if you use a battery powered device but with recent advances in cordless technology, I can't image a drop in quality. Sadly, I probably won’t have a need for this tool simply because most of the work I am doing is in a shop where air is pumped through the space, but if there was ever a time where I needed to go on site or need to do odd jobs here or there I can definitely see myself using this tool.
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