nail guns

One of the handiest tools I found to use in Trench Rescue, or Structural Collapse is the nail gun. Many models are available, powered primarily by pneumatic or cordless operation. Consider the speed and lack of impact that these tools offer. Make sure your gun can shoot 3 1/4" framing nails to be of best use.

Nail guns surely have a home in rescue. My Dept. purchased a Stanley N80S model which accepts up to 16d nails. We put it in service on our collapse truck about 2 years ago. Since then, we have had a chance to use it rather extensivley in training evolutions, and found it to be of extreme value. If used safely and properly, it speeds up the shoring operation quite significantly, and as you say, less vibration wothout 5 hammers swinging. We recently acquired our second gun, which is identical to the first. It was an unused display model without a box or paperwork. We got it for $300. There had never been a nail shot with it, as close inspection revealed. We carry both guns in a pelican type case, with air hoses together. Like every other tool that we operate on air, they were retrofitted with Paratech male air fittings. We find the universal use of the paratech fitting a very good way to simplify air tool operation. Nails for the guns are stored in a seperate tool box, which contains a healthy amount of 8d and 16d stick nails. For training, we find that anything the gun is used for usually becomes a victim of the evolution, where if you used duplex nails, they would pry out more easily. This is ok though, since we have a large amount of wood available to us in reserve. We do not use the gun for any trench evolutions. We find that it is safer and more effective to use the duplex nails, especially to secure the strut bases to the strongbacks. The possibility of ricochet from hitting the strut base is too great. I suppose if you still use wood shoring to handle trench collapses, a nail gun may be of use.