Manual stapler's staples don't penetrate all the way

  • Thread starter Thread starter Robert Montgomery
  • Start date Start date
Create a Post
R

Robert Montgomery

Guest
Does anyone know of a manual stapler whose staples penetrate wood all the way?

I bought a Stanley Sharpshooter but the staples only go halfway into the stretcher bars (even the shortest staples – which are one-quarter inches long).

I returned the Stanley to the store (minus the staples and a re-stocking fee) and bought a Craftsman Professional Easy-Fire (which Pat recommended in a forum here).

But even with the Easy-Fire - again using one-quarter-inch staples - most of the staples slightly protrude from the bars, requiring me to hammer them the rest of the way or pull them out with screwdriver and pliers and try again.

I don't want to buy a pneumatic staple gun/compressor now because of the space requirements, cost and noise.
 
Arrow T-50. 28 years old and still sinks them suckers to the hilt.

It's not always about the size of the tool, its the jack-hammer muscle behind the tool that counts.... or so I've been told. :D
 
Baer Charlton said:
Arrow T-50. 28 years old and still sinks them suckers to the hilt.

It's not always about the size of the tool, its the jack-hammer muscle behind the tool that counts.... or so I've been told. :D
Click to expand...

Must take a real Baer to run a tool like that Mr. Charlton....

And to keep it running for 28 years. Have you hit the 1,000,000 staple mark yet?

( I didn't see Arrow on your full disclosure )

Robert not sure but I wonder if part of the problem might be in the stretcher having give when you staple. Have you tried placing the edge of the stretcher bar on a solid backing such as a sturdy table or bench and holding the gun real firmly onto the surface you are stapling. It shouldn't take much to drive the 1/4" staples. Just a suggestion.... File it if this consideration is already being addressed. Or just do like this....:bdh:

Aloha

Levie
 
When I bought my operation, it had a light duty stapler. I brought in my heavy duty stapler from home (manual), and it did what you are saying. The light duty stapler had thinner tines, and would penetrate the stretcher bar more consistently. The heavy duty staples have a lot of mass to try to sink into the wood.
 
Robert,

First of all, a warm welcome to the Grumble to ya!! You will find a wealth of information here if you learn how to search the archives and find old threads dealing with whatever problem you are facing.

Regarding your stapler problem, there really isn't much you can do to make every staple sink into the wood stretcher just at the proper level. The problem isn't with the stapler most times, it is with the composition of the wood stretcher bar and that you have no control over.

At the risk of Baer challenging my knowledge base, I will simply say that there are "hard spots" and "soft spots" in most every species of wood. If you are driving a staple into a "soft spot", it will probably seat itself properly because the spring setting of the stapler which causes the "power" of the stapler to drive in the staple is consistent and set by the factory to hammer, at the same strength, every staple you attempt to drive into any wood. So, if the wood has "hard spots" in it also, it is natural for the staple to meet with more resistence than in the soft wood spots and it won't go in completely.

This is also a lesser problem with pneumatic staplers although you have the option of increasing or decreasing the "power" of your air stapler according to the type of wood stretcher you are stapling onto by setting your air regulator to a higher or lower operating air pressure. But, even with that convenience, as your compressor loses pressure with use down to that point where it kicks on again to build up to the pressure that is set on your regulator, it will drive the staples with less and less power until such time as it builds back up to whatever pressure you set for it at the air regulator.

Buying an air compressor and a pneumatic stapler won't solve this problem completely so you need to have a hammer close by to tap in those stubborn staples as you stretch.

"Have you tried placing the edge of the stretcher bar on a solid backing such as a sturdy table or bench and holding the gun real firmly onto the surface you are stapling"

Levie,

If you can picture how a canvas is physically stretched and where the stretching pliers is placed and how the whole tamale is held for you to staple each spot, you don't have the luxury of placing the edge of the stretcher bar on the edge of a table top. That would inhibit the use of the stretching pliers, I am afraid.

I can see where it might work if you did all your stapling on the back side of the stretcher bars but most conventional stretching is stapled on the outside edge and would make hooking the bar on a table edge very difficult to do. Plus you run the risk of marring the surface of the painting if you laid it face down to staple on the back of the bar.
 
You only mention manual,and pneumatic....What about an electric staple gun? While I use the OLD (25+years now) Arrow stapler most of the time,I have a nice Stanley electric one for thr bigger jobs...4x6 foot canvases,or say,re-upholstering that chair!Thing fires nice and tight,as long as the item being stapled is against a firm surface. L.:thumbsup:
 
Thanks for the input, L.

The reason I didn't mention electric staplers is I have no experience with them and can't make even a basic comment on how they operate.

But you did a good job of filling in that blank.

Thanks.
 
We went back to manual staple guns from pneumatic many years ago. My hands are small (but strong!) and I had difficulty holding/controlling the larger staple guns. Our framers also prefer the manual JT-21 by Arrow. It seems to be getting harder to find though. Every few years we send our old ones back to Arrow to get them "refurbished" and get them back looking and working like new. Although I haven't been an "official" framer in our shop for many years I still do the difficult stretching jobs and get great results with it.
 
There is no question that the Easy-Fire manual stapler is a better design. But, no stapler will work properly if you allow the target material to flex away - some of the energy will go to the flex rather than to penetration. The logic of the Easy-Fire is that you put the pressure on the staple rather than the other end of the tool.
 
silly question but...
are they regular staples or divergent point staples? Perhaps divergent points will work better.
 
Thanks for the welcome to the group.

I tried the pointed Arrow-T50 staples in the Stanley Sharpshooter manual gun and also those same pointed Arrow-T-50s and flat Craftsman staples using the Craftsman Easy-Fire manual gun.

Both sharp-toothed Arrow T-50s and flat Craftsman staples fire better into the wood using the Craftsman than did Arrow T-50s fired with the Stanley, but both types of staples still protrude slightly about 90 percent of the time using the Craftsman Easy-fire.

I tried stapling into a more study workbench, but it doesn't help, no matter how much pressure I apply.

I'm keeping the canvas as flat against the bars as I can with the canvas pliers while stapling.

How's the recoil on the Arrow staplers? The Easy-Fire has little recoil compared to the Stanley. The Stanley reminded me of the recoil you get when firing a rifle; its vibrations made my hand sore just from stapling one small canvas giclee.
 
Thanks, Richard.

What brand of manual stapler was that, that worked better than your heavy-duty one?
 
A few weeks ago somebody on the G recommend an upholstery pneumatic stapler from Porter Cable. Marty bought one and it is excellent.
 
I've been using Arrow T-50s as long as Baer has (actually, I've got him beat by a year;) ) and they're hard to beat. I don't know of any manual stapler that won't occasionally leave a staple protruding a bit, but the Arrows have muscle and the factory stands behind them. If you want something that will always drive your staple all the way in, invest in a pneumatic. You get more firepower and they're much easier on the hands!
 
What kind of air compressor do you recommend for a Porter Cable US 58 pneumatic staple gun?

(I bought a third staple gun – the here recommended light-duty Arrow JT-21M. The staples penetrate the stretcher bars much better than the Stanley Sharpshooter manual and Crafsman Easy-Fire, but the reverberations caused by the firing of the mechanism soon causes my hands to ache, so I'm still looking for a better alternative.)
 
We use the same compressor we use for other things like the Cassesse and Wizard. It's an noisy, orange, low-rocket science, cheapie from HD, but it keeps on ticking so to speak.
 
Bogframe said:
I've been using Arrow T-50s as long as Baer has (actually, I've got him beat by a year;) ) and they're hard to beat. I don't know of any manual stapler that won't occasionally leave a staple protruding a bit, but the Arrows have muscle and the factory stands behind them. If you want something that will always drive your staple all the way in, invest in a pneumatic. You get more firepower and they're much easier on the hands!
Click to expand...

Seth,

That is true up to a point, but most pneumatic staplers will drive a staple right through the canvas and bury itself into the wood if you hit a soft spot in the stretcher bar. And likewise in the opposite direction if you hit a particularly resinous spot or a hard area in the wood. No matter how you set your air pressure, you will sometimes have to drive a staple in to seat it properly.

I stretch upwards of 50 or 60 canvases at a time with some of our orders and I always have at least one or two staples on each canvas that I have to tap in with a hammer. I don't care what brand of stapler or air compressor you use, none of them will consistently drive staples in and seat them at just the right point so that the canvas is secured to the stretchers but the threads aren't cut through or smashed under the staple head.

That has been my experience, anyway.
 
I've been using a Markwell manual for 36 years to stretch my canvas and it's still works great. Drives 1/2 inch staples in the whole way.
 
Create a Post
Back
Top