There are three tools in my shop that I never thought I needed, but now find indispensable. The Band Saw, the HVLP Sprayer, and the Brad Nailer. Why are they so important to me? Because, in a production environment, every minute counts. Saving a minute here or there doesn’t sound like much — until you look back over a week and realize you shaved hours off of a build. I’ve talked about the Band Saw, so let’s look at the Brad Nailer.

A Brad Nailer is just that — a machine that nails brads (small nails). The most common range of brads is 5/8″ up to 2″. I’ve been looking at them for a while now, but haven’t pulled the trigger (so to speak) because of the complicated setup and the limited use in our shop.

Why complicated? Because most of the nail guns run off of air, so you need a compressor. A compressor means more noise in an already noisy shop. And, more importantly for me, another big current drain in an already underpowered shop (the whole house only has 60 amps coming in).

And it would be a limited use tool, since our coops use screws throughout. However, we had identified a couple of places (interior supports, temporary fixtures, ramps) which really didn’t need to use screws. In fact, screws were a big downside, as it takes a lot longer to fasten with them (drill hole with countersink, drive fastener — a two tool process).

So I was stuck. I knew I could use a nailer, but not enough to want me to hassle with air tools.

Luckily, while scanning through my tool blogs I saw something I was unaware of: The cordless brad nailer. Ah, ha! This could be the solution to my problem.

Unfortunately, I went looking for the brand the one guy mentioned (Senco) but couldn’t find good / consistent pricing on them, and most of the on-line shops were out of stock. Not a good sign. Fortunately, I found that DeWalt makes one. While I knew I’d have to pretty much pay list (DeWalt doesn’t allow much discounting), at least I could walk into Lowe’s and pick one up.

Now before I go much further, let me get this out of the way: This is a $300 nailer.

If you are a weekend warrior, don’t bother. If you already have air in your shop, don’t bother. If you need to sink something other than brads, don’t bother.

A finish carpenter? Get it. Install kitchens? Get it. Rapid assembly? Get it.

DEWALT DC608K 18-Volt 18 Gauge 2-Inch Brad Nailer Kit

Loading the gun is super easy. You slide a panel open and lay the brads in place. There are little grooves which the different sized brads lay in. This is NOT like loading a staple gun. It is infinitely better. You can change from 5/8″ brads to 2″ brads in the time it took me to write this sentence. I can’t tell you how much I love the simple easy loading mechanism.

You can run in single-shot mode, or “bump” — which is what I use when attaching 5mm panels to our coop doors. Bam, bam, bam, bam, bam. I can lay down 30 brads in under a minute. We use the single-shot mode when making our core frames — what used to be a 10 minute process of positioning, holding, drilling, fastening, is now down to maybe 2 minutes. It saves that much time.

But remember, this is a nailer, and a pro tool at that. So it’s big. See the battery pack on the bottom? That’s a standard 18V pack. It gives you an idea of how big the head is. And the head isn’t plastic — that’s metal up top. It’s heavy, about 8 pounds or so, but not horribly so. It’s a great tool for building biceps.

Remarkably, this big tool can get into some pretty tight spaces. And that’s when you really appreciate that it’s battery powered — no hoses to deal with! I climb inside the tight confines of a coop, bam-bam-bam-bam, done. I honestly don’t know how I lived without it.

It’s also quiet. Press against the work to rev up the flywheel inside (pretty quiet) and pull the trigger to sink the brad (quieter than my Arrow staplers). I’ll do a SSS video on how I use it.

Its limits? Well, it can only fire 18 gauge brads, from 5/8″ to 2″. So it’s very specific in what it does. But if you need to pin things into place, or attach finish work, or hold something in place while the glue dries, then it’s an excellent tool. I find myself looking for more uses for it — like knocking together suet feeders.

The executive summary: If you do production work and are sick of trying to use electric staple guns to fire brads, get one of these tools. It is big, heavy, and expensive, but I wouldn’t give up mine. It has saved us time and frustration.