Roofing nailers....

[meackerman]

in the middle of reroofing my barn and my roofing nailer dies. I'll take it to the service center this week, but in the meantime I needed to keep going....Went to Lowes and bought the Bostitch Bulldog. it was the cheapest one they had and I figured I really like the Dewalt I was using when I get it back I'd have the Bostitch as a spare.

Laid down a couple more courses and it looked like the exposures weren't all the same, so I checked the Bostitch against the ones I did with the Dewalt and the Bostitch's shingle guide had shifted. I readjusted it and a short while later I noticed things were off again. Checked the shingle guide again and it had shifted again...I tried to move it with my fingers and it slides back and forth much too easily. With no obvious way to tighten it down tighter I took it back and bought the better Bostitch. Night and day with the cheaper Bostitch...which is worthless if its shingle guide won't stay put.

The more expensive Bostitch finished off the portion of the roof I was doing like a champ. Still prefer the Dewalt for it lighter weight. I've also used the HF roofing nailer and while I didn't care for it all that much, it at least worked like it should...if you want to buy a cheap roofing nailer get the HF.

Didn't get to the next portion of the roof...chased off by a thunderstorm...figured I shouldn't be up on the roof with a metal object in my hand when the lightening came over....so probably got some rain in the barn.

[Grandpa Dave]

+2 on H-F models...bought (2) on closeout w/ 20% off coupon for price of one high end...put on 50+sq...
Worked flawlessly...seldom a misfire and mostly attribute that to Lowes nails.

[meackerman]

I thought about buying the HF one instead, but didn't want to make the hour long round trip to the closest HF. Lowes is less than 10 minutes away...course by the time I bought and returned the first one and bought the second one it took over an hour

[Bob10]

How much rain did you get Saturday morning? They had 3/10s in Sac which is great the only drawback was the painter that was supposed to start didn't because of rain

[meackerman]

.05" is all we got. lots of thunder and lightening though.

[Curlycherry]

<.........did roofing every summer for too many years to count. Skip the guides. Set your starter course stepping the shingles by eye properly and every 5th or so course snap a chalk line across the entire roof. Adjust the top of the shingle that hits those lines to that line. If you drift a lot by placing them by eye then use more chalk lines. If you are good at setting them by eye use fewer lines.

Also nail opposite ends of the shingle then the middle rather than starting at one end and working over. The shingle will not drift if nailing one end to then other.

[meackerman]

I nail both ends first.

I'm not sure I'll be any better off trying to snap lines...there isn't a square or parallel wall on this thing. even the roof isn't square. measuring is as much about eyeballing what looks good as it is trying to make sure everything matches. The people that built the barn almost knew what they were doing, but not quite.