Ryobi One+ 18g Nail Gun

What’s a nail gun? What can you use it for?
A nail gun is like an electric hammer with nails already in it. So with a traditional hammer and nails you hold the hammer in one hand and the nail in the other. With a nail gun you just press it on the workpiece and pull the trigger and voila, nail into workpiece, job done. Great, one handed nailing, you’re going to run out and buy one! Ok, calm down a moment and read on.....

There are a couple of common sizes of nail gun which relate to the diameter or thickness of the nails it fires: 18 gauge (1.2mm ish) and 16 gauge (1.6mm ish) there’s actually more but let’s stick with mainstream kit. The tool shown here that I use is an 18 gauge.
If you go to your local DIY or hardware shop you’ll notice that there are way more than two sizes of nail on the shelf. So out of the hundreds of different nail sizes, lengths, shapes and materials you can buy, a nail gun will only generally give you choices in length and possibly material for the size of nail it takes. If you have a job that needs specific nails like roofing tacks, cut nails, 6” nails or anything that isn’t thin, fairly short with a tiny head then your nail gun will stay in the toolbox. Because it will only fire skinny short nails with tiny heads.

So it’s not worth having for average DIY then? Well, in honesty if you DIY is at a level where you have a couple of screwdrivers, some pliers and a paintbrush then I’d say a nail gun should be a long way down your priority list. However, if you are thinking of changing all the architrave (door trim) in your house or recladding your shed then it may be worth considering.

Why have I got one? Because I DID change all the architrave in a house and I rebuilt a fence and I still have a shed and a gate to do. So it gets used.

Would I buy it again? Yes I would and if I saw a 16 gauge at a good price I’d also get that. I’ve used it maybe 15 times in around two years but some of those times I used it a lot and it never let me down. I also use it for tacking things together to hold them in position while gluing. Because it’s one handed use it’s great for that.

Note: It doesn't necessarily come with all the addons shown in the picture. I'm just showing what you can get with it. Also most battery tools are sold as "Bare" which means NO BATTERY so you may need to buy the battery (and charger) separately

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