troyp37•23d agoProlific Poster

The framing nailer trick that saved my deck build in Austin

I was two days into a 600 square foot deck project and had already burned through a full box of nails on toe kicks that kept splitting the boards. My buddy who does commercial work came by and told me to dull the nail tips with a file, sounds crazy right? I tried it on the next ten nails and not a single split, it just pushes the wood fibers instead of cutting them. Took me maybe 20 minutes to file down a hundred nails and it honestly cut my waste down to almost zero. Has anyone else tried this or do you just live with the split boards and fill them later?

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1 Comment

ivan8221d ago

That trick works because it changes how the nail behaves inside the wood. Dulled tips basically mash the fibers aside, so you dont get that wedge effect that splits softer deck boards, especially cedar or pine. Filing a whole box is a pain, but if youve got a bench grinder, you can buzz a hundred in about five minutes instead of twenty. Ive also seen guys just hit the tips with a hammer on a hard surface to flatten them a bit, which does the same thing in a pinch. Once you start doing it, youll never go back, filling splits with wood glue and sawdust just buys you a problem later.