Question: I'm sure that this never happened to you, but... I was nailing on a face frame (I know, I didn't want to use nails but the angles of this cabinet made it nearly impossible to get good gluing pressure) and a few of the brads blew out the side of the cabinet (see photo).
What is the best way to deal with this? Should I try to pull the brad out from the front/back, snip of off and file it or some other method?
Maybe this would be a good chapter in a future video - brad nailers or something."
Submitted by anonymous
Answer:This has only happened to me about 8 million times.
The brads are so small they won't tolerate being driven backwards. Your best bet is to cut them off. Here are a couple approaches. Use a pair of side cutters and nip the brad as close as possible to the surface of the wood. The problem is that most side cutters only let you get so close. A handy tool to have for occasions like this is the FastCap End Nip Trimmers www.fastcap.com. They're ground so that the cutter is right at the face of the nippers, allowing you to cut flush to a surface. In any case, after the brad is clipped off, use a nail set to tap the remainder below the surface of the wood.
An alternative is to use a rotary tool with a very thin cut off wheel. Orient the cut off wheel in the same direction as the grain and plunge it into the case side above the point where the nail protrudes. This allows you to cut the brad off below the surface. This is my preferred method.
Follow up either operation with a little wood putty, and no one will know you had an "blow out."
George
Do you have a question for WWGOA? Ask us on Facebook or email editor@wwgoa.com. Note: questions may be edited for clarity and relevance.
thin brads enter the wood and then decide where to go... ha ha
If you use 5/8" headless pins, you will never have that problem.
This has happened to me MANY times. (It’s the gift that keeps on giving!). I find the easiest method, if the brad nail is long enough, is to grab it near the tip and bend it back and forth until it snaps off. It has ALWAYS broken just below the surface, so no nail-set needed. Works really well with longer brads, and you can grab shorter ones with a needle nose pliers to get. a reliable grip on them.
in regards to "Fixing Nail Blowouts", I have also had about 8 million blow-outs. I have tried cutting (with side-cutters), pulling, attempted driving them backwards, and tried grinding with a Dremel. I found bending them back and forth until they break works best for me. It typically will break a small piece of the wood surface, however, with a spot of glue it cleans up better than filler. Maybe this will be useful to somebody.
I have found that sometimes I can push the brads back through the wood with a pair of pliers. You have to be careful and put the pliers within 1/4 inch of the wood. It only takes a little movement to be able to extract the brad from the entry point with the same pliers.
First of all, I would suggest you change the way you nail. It appears that you nailed with the nailer perpendicular to the face frame. Since the nails are flat in line with the nailer, they are more likely to skew along the grain or knot in the same direction. If you nail with the nailer parallel to the face, the nail is less likely to bend out the side, since the nail is stiffer in that direction
Take a pair of needle nose pliers and work grip the end of the brad nail and work it back and forth a few times and it will break off!!! Address the remaining hole with your preference and your done!!!
Sometimes I am successful with tapping it backward enough with a nail punch, to expose enough head to pull backwards with vise grips. If you can get it exposed enough (and you win some / you lose some), then the trick is to remember to put some thin sacrificial metal like an old scraper or putty knife between the front wood and the vise grip so it doesn't mar the front / nailing face as you extract it.
If l remember it’s better to shoot your gun with the grain than against the grain for less blow out chances
I'm making a cedar bench for outside and the cedar has hairline cracks in it how do I finish it?