Air brad source

[docrowan]

I just scored a HF 46309 air brad nailer at a garage sale in my neighborhood over the weekend. Lightly used, but the seller let me take it home and test it. It fired and made a nice dent in plywood, so I bought it. Now I need brads for it. In one of the several threads that talk about this unit, I remember reading a few posts about where to get the brads but couldn't find them. Are the HF brads any good? If not, where do you get your brads?

[Brian G]

I've used the HF brads, and have not had any problems. I've also used the Porter Cable 18 ga. brad nails (I bought them at Home Depot) without issues.

[Eric]

You can go to home depot, lowes, or tool supply places and get 18 gauge brad nails.

Just make sure that they're the right size.

[poolhound]

any home center will sell them including HD, Lowes and Ace HW (if you have them). They arent that expensive and any brand will probably do. I have a whole bunch of 18ga 3/4" which I picked up at a yard sale (probably last me forever) I would send you some for cost but shipping wouldnt make it worthwhile for the few bucks savings as most packs of nails are < $10.

[LCHIEN]

any home center will sell them including HD, Lowes and Ace HW (if you have them). They arent that expensive and any brand will probably do. I have a whole bunch of 18ga 3/4" which I picked up at a yard sale (probably last me forever) I would send you some for cost but shipping wouldnt make it worthwhile for the few bucks savings as most packs of nails are < $10.

pretty much the 18 ga brads are standard,
you can get them at Lowes, HD, Sears hardware, etc.
I have found Any brand will do - craftsman, Senco/accuset, Bostitch, Porter Cable, used them in my Sears and Bostitch 18 ga brad nailers.

[docrowan]

I knew I could get them from the big box stores, but I just wanted to find out if there was a "best" brand. I might give the HF brads a try since Brian G said they had worked fine for him. Thanks for the replies!

[LCHIEN]

OK, one suggestion -- they typically come in boxes of 10,000.
Lowes used to carry Accuset/Senco brads in two sampler packs, one pack had brads from about 5/8 to 1.25" and the other from 1.25 to 2", each had two sticks (200 nails) in each of five different sizes 1000 brads per pack. This will get you started and you can find out what sizes work best for you.
I think the sample packs were just a few dollars, the total being less than what a 10,000-brad box would cost.

[poolhound]

OK, one suggestion -- they typically come in boxes of 10,000.
Lowes used to carry Accuset/Senco brads in two sampler packs, one pack had brads from about 5/8 to 1.25" and the other from 1.25 to 2", each had two sticks (200 nails) in each of five different sizes 1000 brads per pack. This will get you started and you can find out what sizes work best for you.
I think the sample packs were just a few dollars, the total being less than what a 10,000-brad box would cost.

You dont need to get that many, as Loring points out you can buy in 1000 or 5000 increments. here are some of the PC selections at HD.

http://www.homedepot.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/Navigation?Ntt=porter+cabel&Ntk=AllProps&N=10000003+501801+10006002&storeId=10051&catalogId=10053&langId=-1

various sizes of 18ga for around $4/1000

[dewi1219]

I've used the Bostitch brand brads from Lowe's in sizes up to 2" in my HF gun and never had a single problem. I've probably been through a thousand or more by now.

[Santa Clarita Len]

[QUOTE=docrowan;368796]I just scored a HF 46309 air brad nailer at a garage sale in my neighborhood over the weekend. Lightly used, but the seller let me take it home and test it. It fired and made a nice dent in plywood, so I bought it. Now I need brads for it. In one of the several threads that talk about this unit, I remember reading a few posts about where to get the brads but couldn't find them. Are the HF brads any good? If not, where do you get your brads?[/QUOTE

Ok, I'll ask! How much did you pay for the nailer?

[docrowan]

Len,

"Scored" was probably too strong a term. The seller was a fellow church member who had already given my daughter a huge stuffed koala bear, so I didn't bargain very hard. I paid 18, but it was still less than I could have picked one up at HF on sale, plus no tax and no gas.

Hmm, thinking of the gas savings maybe it was a score.

Loring,

Thanks for the info on the sampler packs. I'll run by a Lowe's one day and see if they still carry them. That will be a great solution for me. I can't imagine buying 10,000 brads, with my limited shop time that would last me a lifetime.

[BobSch]

Seems to me that HF sells their brads in 5k boxes. That's still a lot of brads, though.

[jhart]

I have the HF 23 ga pin nailer and the HF nails that go along with it. Just used it quite a bit over the weekend and it worked beautifully. Forget what I paid for the nails, but seems to me that the HF are considerably less expensive than the PC's I use in my other PC nailers. You might want to check prices.

[LCHIEN]

Len,

"Scored" was probably too strong a term. The seller was a fellow church member who had already given my daughter a huge stuffed koala bear, so I didn't bargain very hard. I paid 18, but it was still less than I could have picked one up at HF on sale, plus no tax and no gas.

Hmm, thinking of the gas savings maybe it was a score.

Loring,

Thanks for the info on the sampler packs. I'll run by a Lowe's one day and see if they still carry them. That will be a great solution for me. I can't imagine buying 10,000 brads, with my limited shop time that would last me a lifetime.

I was wrong - most brads are sold in 5000 packs, not 10,000.

[poolhound]

All this talk of brads and I had never bothered to see how many were actually in that batch I scored a while back.

I picked up one of these storage bins full of brads etc.

http://www.globalindustrial.com/gcs/product/productInfo.web?&infoParam.itemKey=30005192&infoParam.picGroupKey=2008

There were various things in there in 16ga and 18ga sizes as well as some crown staples and few small packs of staples for a regular hand pulled staple gun. I knew there were a lot of 18ga 3/4 pins but I never bothered to count them. I just looked and there are 9 unopened boxes of 5000. That plus the ones I already had puts me over 50,000 18ga brads. Not bad for $5!!

Hmmm thats enough to fix approx 10 miles of edging or moulding, I guess I better get started