I'm a small volume custom home builder with a crew of five. We install the hardwood flooring on most of our jobs. We have used a manual powernailer for years. Recently I purchased Bostitch's MIIIFN floor nailer and now have moved our manual nailer to the back of the tool bin. Just a light tap is all that is required to fire the nail. In the event the board is slightly bowed feel free to swing away and hammer the board in place. This tool is easy on my carpal tunnel and for those who aren't ambidexterious it's a snap to use with either hand. It does take some time getting used to dragging the air hose around with you, and you definitely need ear protection. But the benefits far outweigh these nuisances. Bostitch MIIIFN 1-1/2- to 2-Inch Pneumatic Flooring Nailer
I had a difficult time deciding which nailer to buy. Should I get the 2" stapler or one of the many cleat nailers out there? I called my hardwood flooring company (BR-111) and was advise that they do not recomend the flooring stapler as the tongues may break while stapling. I ordered the Bostitch floor cleat nailer to install my solid Brazilian Cherry Hardwood flooring. I found out that Brazilian Cherry is the 4th hardest hardwoods availabe. Brazilian walnut is the hardest. I also found out that Brazilian Cherry is almost double as hard as the hardest american oaks. I received my nailer and started nailing down the floor. I set my compressor at 85 psi and nevet touched it again. I installed almost 700 feet of hardwood and the nailer worked perfect. I love my nailer but have to mention that with its size you have to face nail everything within 8" from the wall as the tool is to wide to actuate the striking mechanism. All-in-all this is the tool to buy if you have any doubts. Buy the nails from home depot as their about $7.00 cheaper that online.
I was able to install 160 square feet of a 900 square foot flooring job before my nailer broke. Stanley considers this broken part "normal wear", and Amazon will not take back opened merchandise. Just a heads up to contractors who may worry about buying tools online- don't do it. My regular supplier would have given me a new nailer no questions asked.
This tool makes laying a hardwood floor almost fun. If you are laying a prefinished floor, I would also recommend the optional foot (MIIIFOOT). I don't see that this is available on Amazon. I purchased mine on eBay. Also, some of the reviews on this item are for the MIIIFS, which is a floor stapler, not a nailer. According to some sources, there are less problems with the wood splitting with the nailer. There seems to be a hot market for these tools on eBay. I plan to resell mine when I am finished with it.
We bought this nailer to install 1800sqft of hardwoods in our house. Here's our experience:
Pros:
Beefy. You can tell it's made for the pros. And you can smack it hard to help get warped boards tight.
It does exactly what it's supposed to.
The included mallet feels like high quality, and its just the right weight.
Cons:
We had a lot of problems with the nailer allowing the last nail in a stack to fall out of the nailer. This is a problem because it can fall half way out, then when you put the nailer down on the finished floor, it's easy for the sharp nail to scratch the finish. Get in the habit of setting the nailer on the unfinished part of the floor.
The nailer includes a plastic shoe that bolts to the underside. The instructions say this is for finished floors whereas the normal plate is for unfinished (site finished) floors. The shoe was useless for us. It made it nearly impossible to line up the nailer with the tongue. The normal plate didn't scratch the floor at all. So we used it that way. Maybe softer woods would have scratched (we used distressed oak).
Having to attach the handle was annoying. It also seems like a clunky afterthought. But once installed, it worked fine.
If you don't smack it with a hammer hard enough, it won't drive the nail in all the way in. If it's half way out, you can use channel lock pliers to pry the nail out. But if you get it 90% of the way in, you'll have to use a nail set to drive the nail in the rest of the way so that the next board fits. This is a real pain. The nail metal is soft. It likes to deform or break off. This is more operator error than anything else. So smack it hard.
How it could be better:
Stop letting the last nail fall out.
Make the nail cartridge slightly longer so you can put the next stack of nails in sooner.
Redesign the handle.
What we learned:
For wood floors, wider is better. 5" wide boards mean half the cutting, fitting, and nailing compared to 2.5" wide boards.
Also pick up a finish nailer to help when you're close to walls. If you take the rubber guard off, a finish nailer can nail through the tongue just like this nailer. Less face nailing.
Being an owner & user of Bostitch air tools for 15+ years, my expectations were high when I ordered this tool. Once again, Bostitch has not let me down. This tool is great, easy to use and will undoubtly last a long time. I would reccomend purchasing the finished flooring foot if you are going to use this tool on pre-finished flooring.
I love power tools. This is a very nice one. It really cuts down on the effort expended to nail hardwood flooring. Even so , I prefer the manually actuated nailers from porta nailer and power nailer. They seem to be able to get the flooring tighter. You can really slam them hard with those heavy mallets. This is useful especially with bowed boards. Porta nailers even have a rachet mechanism that will not return until the nail is completely driven. So if you have to hit it more than once (not very often), you can. You can go faster with them . They also give you a better work out. - B000f3i5zy - Tools - Hardwood Flooring Nailer - Bostitch'
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