Customer Reviews

Bostitch PN100K Impact Nailer Kit

5 star:		(53)
4 star:		(18)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

I recently retired and have undertaken a project to build a woodworking shop-garage. Swinging a hammer has become a very tiresome chore, and I was considering the purchase of a framing nailer. Upon reviewing information from various manufacturers, I realized that a framing nailer is a very specialized tool.
However, I happened to run across information about palm nailers. In reviewing the information provided by Amazon, I read that a palm nailer can be used for nailing any size nail and in many different applications. I could see where this would be a more useful tool than a framing nailer. I purchased the Bostitch PN100 kit, and immediately started using it with 16d nails in framing my new shop. I then used 10d nails in decking the roof. All I can say is this nailer is wonderful!! It drives nails quickly, at any angle, and in a limited amount of space. You do have to be careful to make sure that the alignment of the nail with the nailer is correct; if not, bent nails will result. However, with just a little practice, nailing becomes an effortless operation. I would recommend this as a general purpose nailer to anyone. I might also add that I own a brad nailer and a roofing nailer made by Porter Cable, and a 1/4 inch crown stapler, and the Bostitch nailer works as well as any of them.

Bostitch PN100 Impact Nailer

Operation:

This tool will drive virtually any bulk nail, the kind sold by the pound. The smallest nail Bostitch recommends is a 5d (d=penny, a term that refers to nail size). Bostitch claims the maximum size is 75d, but the head on those huge nails won't fit in any of the nose-pieces that Bostitch offers. However, I've used it on 6d to 20d nails with great success.

Insert the nail into the PN100's "nose", where a built-in magnet holds it. Hold the nailer with either hand, press the point of the nail into the material; when the tool senses the pressure, a fast-acting piston cycles the hammer which drives the nail. It sounds like a Tommy Gun. You can drive a 20d nail in about one second, depending on wood hardness. You can also start the nail with a hammer then put the PN100 on that nail, or, hold the nail with your fingers (risky), or hold the nail with another tool (e.g., pliers).

The tool is sold by itself with the standard nose only, or in kit form. The kit includes a wrench to change from the standard nose to the included finishing nail nose or an oversized nose for nails with large heads, spare O rings, a spare magnet, oil, a leather tool cover (improves grip and comfort), and a custom case to protect the tool and accessories.

Pros:

- Particularly useful in confined spaces, such as between joists, hard to reach nails, odd angles, overhead, etc. You only need space for the tool and nail, plus room for your hand on the tool. Except for a small pin nailer, most nail guns take more space to operate than this palm nailer. Swinging a hammer takes even more space.

- For applications such as installing lots of joist hangers, this tool is ideal. If you're building a deck for example, this tool could "pay" for itself on that one job.

- The tool is not heavy and it is comfortable to hold in your hand, especially with the leather cover attached (which comes with the kit).

- Works on things other than driving new nails. E.g., to drive in the built-in spike on joist hangers, nail heads that aren't in all the way, pointed ends of nails that are poking out in the wrong place, etc.

- Substantially quicker and easier than swinging a hammer, improving productivity. Drives large nails flush in less than a second, in a machine-gun burst of energy. Depending on the job, nailing could be four or five times faster than with a hammer.

- This tool shines when nailing into engineered lumber (e.g., laminated beams) or lumber in old houses, which is frequently denser than new construction lumber. The first few times I used the PN100, WOW was the word that came to mind.

- For us older guys, swinging a hammer for hours one end is murder on your muscles. With the PN100, your hand might tingle after extensive use, but that's about it.

- Tool appears to be excellent quality, but it will be years before I could attest to longevity.

- Simple to operate. There are no buttons or switches. There is no depth control either; when the nail is flush, it stops banging.

- Should be safer than a nail gun that is connected to an air hose, since YOU insert the nails one at a time; i.e., there is no supply of nails in the gun to have an accident with. In any case, it's probably best to not leave a nail in an unattended gun with an air hose connected.

- Can change nail size/type immediately, since there is no magazine; e.g., any nail with a head up to .42" (+/-) will fit in the standard nose.

- The standard nose seems to fit most bulk nails.

Cons:

- This tool is VERY loud, especially in a confined space. Wear hearing protection, even if driving only one nail.

- Of course, you will need an air compressor, as for any air nailer. Any size tank compressor should work. I mostly use a 3/4 HP Thomas portable air compressor with an operating air pressure between 100 and 125 psi. When driving lots of large nails, I frequently have to wait for that small compressor to catch up. With a larger compressor, waiting would be less of an issue.

Other:

- This tool is most practical for projects where "hammer" dimples won't be an issue; i.e., rough work such as house framing. It can be used for interior work, as long as you can deal with hammer dents, sometimes several dents per nail. (Dents are 3/16" in diameter, the size of the PN100 "hammer".) One way to avoid the dents is to pull back on the tool before the nail is driven home. You need lightning fast reflexes to do this, as the PN100 drives a nail very quickly. Personally, I use finish nailers or other methods whenever dents would be a problem.

- For professionals or anyone that drives thousands of nails, this tool will not replace speciality nail guns. Roofing nailers, pin nailers, framing nailers, trim nailers, etc., are still best for their intended application, most of the time.

- Some nails will bend, but not nearly as often as with a hammer, in my experience. Bends occur most often on smaller nails in hard wood, or if the tool isn't straight-on with the nail.

- Good value on Amazon, as our local Home Depot charges $80 for the non-kit version.

- Before using, you need to install a 1/4" quick disconnect fitting and lightly oil the tool. The only maintenance is an occasional oiling.

- If you jar the tool, the hammer could stop in mid-stroke, making the tool inoperable. All you have to do is whack the back of the tool with the palm of your hand to un-stick it. My PN100 was stuck when I first tried to use it, but hasn't stuck since.

- The fitting that holds the nose on my tool was so tight, I had to put the tool in a wood vise and use a very large Crescent wrench to loosen it the first time.


Anyone planning a large construction project (new house, renovation, addition, deck, etc.) should consider buying this tool.

I have just begun a 2000 sq. ft. addition on my home. This nailer is the perfect tool for nailing all the joist hangers. I have a lot of engineered lumber in my design and trying to drive a nail by hand into a microlam beam is very difficult. I have framing nailers but they are too big to get in between the rafters at times.

The tool has a good feel and weight. Very comfortable. I drove over 200 nails the first day I used it and it never malfuctioned once. The glove keeps the tool where it needs to be and there is very limited recoil so it doesn't bother your hand at all.

I would recomend this nailer to anyone who does even the smallest amount of construction or home inprovement. In fact I have a second one on order for a Christmas gift for my 68 year old father who fell in love with it the first time he used it.

After pondering a framing nailer for a while, I decided to try this palm nailer out. I can't say enough good things about it. I just started my deck and this tool quickly worked its way up to the most important. I've been driving 10D 3" nails for 4 hours and my arm is still feeling great. The nice thing about it is that you can drive very precise nails. The control is good such that you can start a nail without driving it all of the way in. This is really helpful for the rafter ties and joist hangers. Also, there is minimal recoil, so its not tiresome after driving many nails. Using standard nails also saves a lot of time and money over framing nailers that use stick nails. The air consumption is minimal, I have a 6-gallon 2-hp compressor and the compressor kicks on every 5 minutes or so. My only advice besides buy one if you're thinking about it is to get a swivel air hose connection. It does not come with a quick connector fitting and adding one with a swivel allows you to get in corners without much trouble. The only problem is with the quick connect, it no longer fits in the carrying case.

I have only Bostitch nail guns and am satisfied (maybe even impressed) with their performance, especially compared to some other brands I have briefly used. The PN100 is no different: a solidly made product that performs. However, depending on your application you may or may not be always satisfied with its performance. I bought it because I needed to assemble high-end cedar fencing but the cost of the normal Bostitch coil gun that drives 2 1/2" stainless 8d nails was expensive (~$300) and I didn't think that I would use it on a regular basis (it is really only intended for siding and fences).

For rough nailing the PN100 works fine but for nailing in an area that will be later visible, the unit tends to leave impact marks (At 90psi, ~5/8" circle outside the nail head on the work) that are undesirable. Also, since there is not a control mechanism to guide full head nails (fence, siding, framing) it is easy to end up driving the nail crooked (it comes with one for finish nails though) or even bend the nail. I also experienced some "walk" where when getting close to the work, the pneumatic driver would occasionally walk off the head and actually strike the work leaving a 3/16" punch mark.

All in all this is a great unit but if you want consistent results on larger jobs or you want to do semi-finish work, invest in a collated Bostitch nail gun. For driving singulated nails, etc., where you can accept some marking, non-perpendicular drives or where the job is small enough that it doesn't justify the investment in a full nail gun (~$90 for PN100, ~$150 to $350 for a collated gun depending on the application) this is the perfect gun.

I'll be keeping mine and using it for many years but I also won't be discarding my other nailers. A great low-cost buy for odds-n-ends or speciality work where singulated nails are the status quo. The PN100 will put your normal 20oz hammer in a garage sale.

I bought this nailer and put in two dozen or so Joist hangers and did a little blocking. It is quite large and massive which gives it a good solid feel and dampens the vibration a bit. It has power, and with three tips plenty of versatility(anyone use those other tips?). There is an extra magnet in the repair kit bag. Here's the problem: The magnet is too weak. Reaching around a joist with a 16d the nails can fall out. Worse, because the nails are so poorly secured, it is difficult to start them straight when you are not going into hardware. Strangely, nails hold great to the outside of the tip. Bottom line -- If you just want to blast n10s and 16ds into joist hangers, this guy has power and speed to spare. For bare wood, it's hard to get em started straight.

So I bought the Ridgid. The Ridgid is lighter and has a better magnet. I don't think it is as solid and powerful as the bostitch, but at least I can place nails straight and without them falling out. Love ya Bostitch, but you need a better magnetic nose.

I got this nailer as a promo item with one of Bostitch's large framing nailers. What a combo kit! The palm nailer does everything the big nailers can't.

You stick 1 nail in the nose and the magnet grabs hold of it. Just press the nail up to the board you want to nail and push. It "jack-hammers" the nail through like butter. It probably takes 2 seconds or less to drive a 3" nail through two 2x's (one of those 2x's being 80s year old, read "hard as a rock") with 100 psi. I run mine off one of those tiny (don't know the size, sorry, but it's the smallest available) compressors with no problems. It also hammers through metal hanger brackets (Simpson strong-ties) easily.

The palm nailer is perfect for between rafters, joists, and other small spots that you can't hit with a hammer or get a big nailer into.

Oh yeah... As far as instruction manuals go, I didn't even notice if it came with one. C'mon! If you need a manual to use this thing, then you probably shouldn't be playing with air tools!

As the other reviewers stated, this drives nails really well. However, I stumbled onto another use for this nail gun.

I used this palm nailer to countersink trim nails in my cabinet crown moulding. I use my brad nailer or finish nailer to nail up the crown, but I always get a few that are not deep enough. I used to take a hammer and punch -and hammer them by hand. I miss a lot and occasionally slip the punch off the nail head and dent the trim. Especially in the tight areas around the cabinets.

Well, I got the idea to turn the air PSI down to about 20 and use the palm nailer to tap the punch, and it worked great.

I put the punch on the protruding nail head, and tap the punch end with the nailer just enough to get one "whack" out of it. Usually this is enough to countersink the nail. If the PSI needs more or less to do the job, its simple to figure out the adjustment.

This is MUCH faster than swinging with a hammer. LOL

Serindipity at its best...

I recently decided to build a deck. I knew I would be finishing my basement down the road. I needed a nailing tool that could frame and provide positive placement for the various metal hangers used on the deck. Bostitch is the only company that makes a combo gun that can shoot framing nails and short joist hanger nails. This gun is a full size framing nail gun. I felt like it may be too large for many situations on the deck. Not to mention it was pretty pricey. I needed a more versatile nailing tool. This tool is as versatile as a hammer. It will drive pretty much anything. I have had no problems getting into tight places, it has driven everything I have thrown at it with ease, and it is very fast. It has a very good feel in the hand. I was a little worried about recoil, but I haven't even noticed it. It is easy on an air compressor and the kit provides everyhting you need to keep it up and running. The only thing I wish it came with was an air adapter. For the money this tool was quit surprising. In fact I was leary of it because of its price. Don't be. It is great!

I was looking for a versatile nailer that could complete many nailing jobs - THIS IS THE ONE. The small size of this nailer makes it great for odd angles, where it would be uncomfortable to swing hammer (ie. overhead). Also, being an impact nailer it gives better control over depth, without having to make any adjustments. A definite plus is that it uses bulk nails so you don't have to hunt all over the store for the right size at the store.