Cordless belt fed screw gun (Senco)

This is the semi-auto "assault gun" of screw guns. Nearly 2 years ago I saw a sale on Senco brand rechargeable screw guns. The price was right so I got one. As extra incentive it came with a "RotoZip" drywall tool that shares the two batteries and charger that came with the gun.

Each plastic belt holds 50 screws and they auto feed. I was helping with drywalling a sunporch a couple days ago and got to put it into action in a big way. With easy acces to where you want the screw you can shoot screws faster than 1 per second. In hard to access areas I could typically shoot a screw 1/2 way in or so and come back to it with a conventional cordless drill/driver. Screws come 1000 to a plastic pail. They are higher priced than boxed or bulk but I never stuck myself on a sharp tip or defective thread like I ALWAYS did with a drill/driver.

The guy I was helping was so impressed he just HAS to get one. He doesn't know but his wife already bought one as an aniversary present.

It shoots 3 lengths (one at a time as you have to select the length on a setting.) Depth of "dimple" is a simple knurled knob adjustment.

This thing is terrific for drywall but can be used for driving "drywall" screws into wood for other uses.

[img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img] Pat [img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img]

Pat; Senco is usually pretty good stuff. I don't know a lot about the drivers like you have, but I do know they might save this old back when fastening down deck boards. The question on these is, can you get hot dipped galvanized for the new ACQ excuse? I usually drive 2 1/2" screws with my PorterCable 19.2 volt driver. But bending over like that is not good anymore. [img]/forums/images/icons/grin.gif[/img]

Me no savy "ACQ EXCUSE", Kemo Sabe.

There are deck screw guns with extended handles so you don't have to get on your knees or even bend over very far.

[img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img] Pat [img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img]

Pat; Sorry, I was referring to the new wood treatment ACQ. I can't remember what the acronym abbreviates other than the Q standa for "quate". The new treatment is much more corrosive than the tried and true CCA we were used to. Seems the EPA decided that to prevent children from eating the treated wood they would outlaw it from many former uses that the common guy was using it for. Something about the danger of the arsenate which the "A" refers to.

I was wondering if the screwgun you have, has available hot dipped zinc coated, or stainless steel screws available.

It sure would be nice to not bend over for hours screwing down deckboards.

Again, sorry for any confusion. I refer to the new treatment as an excuse because many of us feel that it was an unwarranted move on the part of the EPA to discontinue the use of CCA. Not only must the fasteners used for ACQ have to be higher grade, thusly more expensive, but any hardware such as joist hangers should be a higher quality also. [img]/forums/images/icons/crazy.gif[/img]

John, I find that the specific model Senco that I have has been discontinued. A local (30 miles) Ace hardware has the only two around. $199 for the gun and a (they claim) $100 RotoZip tossed in for free. A handyman my mom hired liked my gun so much (I helped him hang some drywall) that he ran on about it to his wife and she got the info from me and bought him a current production 19volt gun only (no rotozip) for $140 as an anniversary present. He said it will do 2 inch screws. I don't know if it will do larger or not but a google on Senco will find the Senco web site (if it isn't Senco.com) and the info is there.

These semi-automatic auto loaders with "pre-ban 50 round clips... just joking about pre-ban) are better for repetitive screw shooting by far than a "single shot"

The gun needs a guick simple sdjustment to change screw lengths. There is a simple depth adjust for how hard you want the screw driven before it automatically quits driving it.

You can hold the trigger down to shoot a whole clip of ammo. It fires a screw to a preset depth everytime the nose switch is depressed. You don't waste time or battery juice spinning it up to speed for each individual screw.

The model(s) made for decking/flooring have the extended handle so you remain upright while shooting and don't need knee pads.

I have found that I can reload the plastic ammo belts several times to shoot "bulk" packaged screws. How many times is unknown as we used about a thousand factory loaded screws and just made some tests about reloading. Not that I'm cheap mind you, but I have a lot of bulk screws in stock and I'd rather load them into the old belts than to have to manually feed them one at a time to a reqular screw gun.

With a drill/driver, even with the special accessory screw holder bits, I find that I end up eventually with a few wounds on my fingers. Not a single booboo aftter 1000+ screws with the Senco. I haven't needed to change the bit due to wear in the Senco yet but there is a slide switch/lever that is realy convenient for swapping the bit. It comes with various bit styles and sizes for common pattern screw heads.

[img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img] Pat [img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img]

<font color="blue">...hot dipped zinc coated...</font color>
I know several places that indicate these are OK for ACQ lumber, but I wouldn't use anything but stainless steel. Someone on CBN (or TBN) indicated they used hot dipped zinc coated screws to hold some concrete forms together. When he took them apart after a week or two, they had already corroded.

Pat; Thanks for the info. I have a couple Senco nail guns. If they are any indication of the quality of the rest of their tools, there is no doubt in my mind that your driver is right there too.

Quality tools really make the job a lot more enjoyable [img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img]

Mike; Know what you mean. Lowes in their effort to please the environmentalists, moved to ACQ lumber way before it became required. I guess in a sense that was alright to some people. The big problem is, I wonder how many contractors aside myself didn't notice it, and used fasteners and hardware like we did with the CCA? I'm also curious if Lowes and anyone else that did this plan on backing us from the lawsuits that may come out of this due to deck failures.

Man, a huge can of worms has been opened, and I'm afraid that contractors and builders are going to be the ones to fend for themselves. [img]/forums/images/icons/confused.gif[/img]

Lowe's corporate knows there will be problems and has instructed stores to call a certain # of a certain excutive office who's name escapes me if there are problems. One of their tv broadcasts showed all this. So they are aware. A customer came into my dept. the other day wanting to know what to fastners to use for the lumber. Seems he'd attached somthing to his deck and it'd corroded in 3 months. Got him some SS ones and he was happy.

(yes Lowe's has a tv channel piped to the stores)

I was looking at the specs for the ds275 cordless with 18v battery. It indicates the screw gun only has 50 lbs of torque. I really wonder if this is enough to drive a 3" screw into a solid block of wood? Anyone have experience with this scenario?

Jerry, The easy answer is, I DON'T KNOW. The potentially helpful version is:

Well, Jerry, you see there are a lot of variables here... First you didn't state a useful figure for the torque which is a distance times a force. I assume you mean pound inches because 50 pound feet is up there with the smaller air driven impact tools. Next a solid block of wood (as different from a hollow block?) doesn't say much... cured oak, iron wood, balsa????

Now that I got that off my chest...

If you have or have access to a torque wrench calibrated in pound inches, adapt it to a driver bit to fit the screws of interest and finish driving a screw that is about 1/2 way driven by other means into the SOLID BLOCK (not my head) of your choice and note the torque required. I suggest you drive several as there will likely be variations. If you can't find a torque wrench calibrated in pound inches use a pound feet wrench and go for about 4.17 pound feet (same torque.) If you have a metric wrench, we do more math.

50 inch pound-force = 5.6492415 newton meter
or
50 inch pound-force = 564.9241467 newton centimeter

If your metric wrench is calibrated in some other measurement, then go here:

http://www.onlineconversion.com/torque.htm

You could compare the torque figures listed for the tool in question to the torque figures listed for a tool you know (or believe) is powerful enough to do the job.

I know there are semiauto screw guns with extension handles used to drive deck screws in two by dimensional kiln dried pressure treated lumber but never knew the model numbers.

Good luck to you. Let us know what you find out.

[img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img] Pat [img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img]

Pat,
That's a neat conversion site! [img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img]
Thanks
Leo

I am sistering joists in my crawl space. The wood is spruce. I am driving 3" screws into 3 inches of wood. My current drill is a 14.4 volt cordless milwaukee. Acorrding to Milwaukee's website it has about 460 inch pounds of torque. The drill has a built in clutch with settings from 2 to 20 "full power". I have found that for me to consistently sink the 3" screws it has to have a setting of 18. This has leads me to believe the automatic screw gun won't work in this situation...dang!

Mine wouldn't work in your situation as for one thing it won't auto feed 3 inch screws.

I wouldn't rule out the semi auto extended handle deck screw guns until I checked their specs and or talked to the maker.

[img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img] Pat [img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img]

<font color="blue"> I am sistering joists in my crawl space. </font color>
Wouldn't a nail gun work just as good and be faster (assuming you have one [img]/forums/images/icons/tongue.gif[/img] )?

Now that you mention it. The reason I don't use a nail gun is because I can't get it to fit between the joists. Which is also another reason this screw gun won't work. I guess I was just looking for an easier way of doing this and forgot about some of the restraints.

How about a drill with a right angle drive, Milwaukee makes one, and lag bolts. You probably wouldn't need more than 8" or so of clearance. You don't need to drill all the way through, just a starter hole. http://www.milwaukeeconnect.com/weba...CategoryId=362

<font color="blue"> The reason I don't use a nail gun is because I can't get it to fit between the joists. </font color>
Palm nailer?

I have one of those. a cheap one, and it works pretty well. Kind of like a rivet gun for wood!

Mike; I've got one of those. It's really good when nailing in hurricane ties. I've blackened a few figernails when pounding in those 9N nails!! [img]/forums/images/icons/blush.gif[/img]