gidon
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- 19 Mar 2003
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- Location
- West Dartmoor, Devon, UK
- 4 May 2006
- #1
As I've mentioned in my other post, I've been making presents for family including a few picture frames. I usually use some sort of spline to reinforce the joint but because I had quite a few to make, I thought I'd look at getting a vee-nailer. Additionally, I needed a tool to insert those very thin bendable flexi-pins that allow you to remove the backing of the frame to replace the photo. The Pushmaster fit the bill but I was reluctant to spend £40 for such a thing. Still easy to justify to myself (and more importantly the wife) with the saving in pressies . (Got a few other things through on that one too!)
This tool holds two types of vee-nails for hardwood and softwood of differing lengths on its magnetic tip. The idea is you just mount the nail and push it close to the rebate on the backside of the mitre (plus one in the middle on wider frames). Hah!
Well since I mainly use hardwoods I've been using the hardwood nails unsurprisingly. The softwood nails are apparently sharper but would end up following the grain in hardwood which would be no good. To cut to the chase, I've tried these in Ash and Oak and there's no way I can push them in by hand, I have to resort to a nylon mallet pretty early on. To be fair the instructions do mention you may need to tap the end of the Pushmaster with a mallet with hardwoods. But this is more than a tap. [This isn't surprising to be honest - I don't usually insert nails by just pushing hard with my thumb!] And there lies the problem. You're meant to be able to add the v-nails whilst the frame is in the clamp, which would mean you could move onto the next frame nice and quickly. I'm using a Bessey vario clamp, which can apply a huge amount of pressure and has no noticable stretch, but I still find the force of inserting these v-nails aided by the nylon hammer, just opens those finely tuned mitres. Very annoying. Now Frameco - the company who makes the Pushmaster do a steel band clamp, which they recommend but it's even more than the Bessey and I would still be interested to see whether that'd do the job ... Trouble is slippery glue and whacking with hammers isn't the best combination.
So how about if you let the glue set first overnight, take the frame out of the clamp and then have a go? That should be just fine surely. NO! On three frames I tried this on, with two of them the force of inserting the vee-nail actually broke the end grain glue joint on one mitre on each! Arghh!!
I'll come to my conclusions in a minute, but first how about the Pushmaster's other much-touted abilities to insert those little flexipoints:
Well I'm afraid I didn't have much luck with this either. Again mere hand pushing wasn't quite enough, and hammering just bent the nail (this was in Bubinga to be fair). Plus the magnetic head actually damaged the back of the frame. I gave up and used nails instead to hold the backing board in place (also applied with the Pushmaster with a little more success). I need to try this with some other hardwoods.
Conclusions: Well as you can see I'm not overly impressed. I am tempted to put the thing on Ebay. But, the trouble is I'm really not sure what the alternatives there are at the price point. I mean, it does hold the vee-nails in position, and therefore allows much more accuracy on inserting those nails, even if you do need to hit it with a hammer. And as for those flexipoints well you could use a dedicated (staple-type) gun. I would be interested to see how that coped - they are very soft by their very nature those flexipoints. So is that the fault of the Pushmaster? Of course in softwoods and those horrible foam mouldings I'm sure the Pushmaster works a treat. But I would have to recommend caution on purchasing this thing for use with hardwoods. Having said that, there may be some tricks of the trade I need to learn - I did already find by the fourth frame that my technique has improved somewhat. I think it's important to start the nail off by hand as much as you can and keep the nail absolutely perpendicular to the surface. I will add more thoughts as I use it more.
Blimey that's a lot of words to describe my thoughts on essentially such a simple tool! Anyone have one care to add any comments, or anyone else for that matter?
Cheers
Gidon