Paslode F150S

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Tired (literally) of holding a nail gun up during long projects? This is for you.

The Takeaway: Paslode's F150S-PP is a pneumatic nailer that cures the drudgery of fastening metal connectors to studs, joists, plates, and other pieces of wood framing. A probe on the tool's nose locates the gun so it fires a specialized 1.5-inch nail right through the hole in the connector and into the lumber. It works flawlessly.

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Metal connector plates reinforce the joint between two wood framing members, such as floor joists and the band joist, or between studs and the wall plate. This hardware became commonly used on American construction sites about 40 to 45 years ago. These plates are perforated, and carpenters drive nails through the holes and into the wood framing members. The problem was (and is) that a typical house or remodeling project will require hundreds of nails to attach these plates. Spend a day nailing them on by hand, and it's a very long day indeed.

Nail-gun manufacturer Paslode provided the solution to that drudgery more than a decade ago by developing the first pneumatic-powered nailer to partially automate the task. The brand called it a "positive placement" nailer for the fact that once the carpenter has the gun properly aligned, the tool shoots a nail squarely through the hole in the metal connector and into the joist, band joist, header, stud, or plate.

A standard framing nailer can fire a nail accurately, but not so much so that you could reliably position the gun over a hole in a metal connector plate that is slightly larger than 1⁄8-inch diameter and fire the nail through it. Paslode's positive placement nailer, on the other hand, has a metal probe at the nose of the gun. The probe is a pointy, wedge-shaped piece of metal projecting forward from the nose. Locate the probe in the connector plate's hole and pull the trigger. It's that fast and simple. You get a sense of how quickly the gun goes about its work in this video.

Though as much as the early versions of that tool were improvements over nailing by hand, they were big, bulky beasts. A lighter, slimmer gun was called for.

Enter the F150S-P.

Paslode's new positive-placement nailer is a thing of beauty. In our tests, we found it reliably fires 1.5-inch galvanized connector nails through the bracket and into both LVL (laminated veneer lumber) and Douglas fir, two of the toughest framing materials we know of. We especially appreciated its good balance, slimness, and light weight—6.4 pounds with its magazine loaded. Given how much of this work you do standing on a ladder with the gun over your head or when bending over, perched on a beam, those characteristics are most welcome. And the tool is easy to load with a rear-access magazine. It takes just seconds to drop in a strip of nails, and you’re off and nailing.

We appreciated, too, that the tool provides a good sight line to its nose and that the probe. With hundreds of these nails ahead, you want each one to be a sure thing—quick to locate and reliably fired. If the tool wouldn't drive the nail home (some carpenters refer to this as driving the nail dead; as in "dead as a door nail"), then the nailer wouldn't be much use. You’d have to hang it up (the tool is provided with a hook that allows you to hang it off a rafter or joist), pull out your hammer, and finish the job. We found no such need here.

Roy Berendsohn has worked for more than 25 years at Popular Mechanics, where he has written on carpentry, masonry, painting, plumbing, electrical, woodworking, blacksmithing, welding, lawn care, chainsaw use, and outdoor power equipment. When he's not working on his own house, he volunteers with Sovereign Grace Church doing home repair for families in rural, suburban and urban locations throughout central and southern New Jersey.

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