Thread: Carpenters and nailguns

Well ranted .RC - it's not just the chippies either. Have you tried to recycle timber from a pallet or a machinery crate lately? With a machine driving the nails for them, the assemblers of these things create something which only comes apart in splinters. What a waste of good wood!

Last week I watched an old episode of Grand Designs where the house was built using a "green" oak frame. The whole thing was put together using mortise and tenons and dowels, it was great to watch the workmanship.

Mind you, the frame alone came in at something like $160,000

Hope you have your asbestos suit on, RC. While not a wood butcher myself, I suspect they may have a thing or two to say about this . Should be a fun thread if it doesn't get out of hand and shut down.

I think carpentring must be one of the easiest apprenticeships to do as there certainly is no test for any sort of precision when you have a nailgun at your disposal...

I believe the placement and type of nail is stipulated by the Australian Standards or some such organisation, so I suspect that bow may have been a tad long of limb...

Cheers,
Mick

It's all very simple there are good tradesmen Very few, and there are bad tradesmen on the increase and there are those who are neither and they are a real worry

I've done carpentry here Stateside in the past. Most of those I've worked with display the attitude that as long as no one complains and it hold together for the warranty period (the state I'm in says by law minimum of one year) then it is good enough. I really can't stand that attitude.

ron

Originally Posted by Big Shed

Last week I watched an old episode of Grand Designs where the house was built using a "green" oak frame. The whole thing was put together using mortise and tenons and dowels, it was great to watch the workmanship.

Mind you, the frame alone came in at something like $160,000

I saw a Grand Designs episodes where the overseer was from the states and he couldn't get over the fact that tradesmen in the uk were still using hammers!

What worries me more than nailguns is the wood that is being used for framing. I suppose I'm old fashioned but two storey houses framed in radiata don't give me confidence.
Cheers,
Jim

I finished my apprenticeship of 5 years in early 1950
As you can imagine no power tools all hand tools.
I have had experiences with modern carpenters recently doing additions, it may be the team that I hired. They went to tafe and I know one of teachers from the tafe and he said that one of the carpenters was his best.
The addition had a broken hip and gable and they joined the trusses on Friday afternoon.
They had no idea how to do it. I pulled out their work over the weekend and righted it.
On Monday they said nothing and I had trouble with conversation with them because of their earphones playing MP3
I suppose the fault must lay with method of construction these days

les

Originally Posted by les88

I finished my apprenticeship of 5 years in early 1950
As you can imagine no power tools all hand tools.
I have had experiences with modern carpenters recently doing additions, it may be the team that I hired. They went to tafe and I know one of teachers from the tafe and he said that one of the carpenters was his best.
The addition had a broken hip and gable and they joined the trusses on Friday afternoon.
-9They had no idea how to do it. I pulled out their work over the weekend and righted it.
On Monday they said nothing and I had trouble with conversation with them because of their earphones playing MP3
I suppose the fault must lay with method of construction these days

les

I'm not sure they actually teach you how to make your own trusses/ make a cut roof at tafe anymore, everything seems to be based around installing pre fab, Speed appears to be the no1 priority, anything that requires thinking outside the square appears to take too much effort so it gets left to the truss and frame designer.
I guess demand dictates the learning and speed appears to be directing the learning.
Like they say time is money.
It's a shame but it's the building industry today. unfortunately it's driven by the huge demand.

I actually subbie to a builder (in his 60's)who reminisces the good old days, he has plenty of good stories with the inception of trench head saws, compressors and nail guns etc and guys coming to work in a shirt and tie.
He does note though with the invention of each tool came a reduction in time to do the job and then a reduction in payment to do that job.

Originally Posted by peanuts

He does note though with the invention of each tool came a reduction in time to do the job and then a reduction in payment to do that job.

I guess its the building contractor who dictates the type of quality he wants through what he is prepared to pay for the job. Anyway, as far as house frames go, on the west coast they are still masonry with double brick being the standard.

Radiata has actually been pretty good for the building industry here I think - mainly because builders previously used green jarrah and karri for roofing and ceiling timbers. While the hardwoods themselves were superior in terms of suitability for the job, using green timber warped a lot of ceilings. Radiata is of course kiln dried and doesn't cause warping.

Originally Posted by .RC.

What is it with modern day carpenters and nailguns? They seem to live with the ideology that you don't need proper fits these days as ten nails and a 10mm gap will hold the job just as well as a mortise and tenon.

I think carpentring must be one of the easiest apprenticeships to do as there certainly is no test for any sort of precision when you have a nailgun at your disposal...

/end rant

Maybe you should quit your day job and show us how it's done.

At trade school there was no test for air nail gun use, but there was a test for powder actuated guns.

I think carpentring must be one of the easiest apprenticeships to do

Eaiser than spelling?

thanks for throwing out the bait rc.
i will bite, just for the fun of it.

i would say carpentry is one of the most precise trades on a construction site.
come and give me a hand for a week and we shall see what your precision work is like.

by the way, before you go bagging the crap out of us chippies, give us some back ground please.
what do you do for a living?

regards, justin.

Originally Posted by .RC.

What is it with modern day carpenters and nailguns? They seem to live with the ideology that you don't need proper fits these days as ten nails and a 10mm gap will hold the job just as well as a mortise and tenon.

I think carpentring must be one of the easiest apprenticeships to do as there certainly is no test for any sort of precision when you have a nailgun at your disposal...

/end rant

Its simple, could you afford to pay tradies to use high quality joints in your house when its not really needed?(nails do suffice)

Originally Posted by Big Shed

Mind you, the frame alone came in at something like $160,000

Now, where did I put that nail gun.

I did pick that on Grand Designs, not on one episode but many- UK building sites with nary a nail gun to be seen! There was one project, some co-operative build with many dwellings, and they were all hammering away like crazy to meet some important funding deadline, and all I could think of was how less the pressure would have been with a decent compressor and nailguns!
I worked as a carpenter's TA in the late 70's and we were still chopping out housings in top and bottom plates for studs, in jarrah.
To digress, I have been working on a deck at home, and housed a particularly awkard joist about 1/3rd into a bearer (going on the m&t principle), and have no nail gun on-site. Was quite pleased with the fit, but the inspector had one look at it and shook his head, reckons such practice is frowned upon, and I later heard any checking-in should be a max of 1/10 the thickness!? I guess I should have just blasted the sucker with a couple of huge nails!

Cheers