sheathing nails

[dug]

 After reading several posts here about the superiority of ring shanked nails I decided it would be worth the small additional cost so I drove into town to buy some sheathing nails. I asked the guy at the local building supply where they were and he looked at me like I was from the moon, said they never had a call to stock them. I then went to the local hardware store and they also had none (to fit my nail gun) but I found these-




I liked the name- Anchor down!- but not the price. $30 for 5# box!! I bought a couple boxes anyway to give them a try. They seem thinner than most 8d's and about one in three bends or breaks when driving them. I may not be great with a hammer but I'm not that bad!

Should I not use these? Take the unused box back and buy plain nails for my gun?

[PEG688]

Those are SIDING nails , like it says on the box . NOT sheathing nails. They are designed to nail on wood lap siding , a bottomed (showing the nail head) nailed situation.

NO you should NOT use them to nail your wall or roof  sheathing on. They are NOT shear rated type nails, they are thin and made to NOT split wood siding.

  You should use a 8d Box nail ,  hot dipped galv. nails IMO hold better than ring shanks.

   They   Hot dipped Galv) cost a bit more than sinkers ( the greenish colored nails generally used for framing) but they hold better .


    So no nail gun for you?   Your hand nailing every thing?

   Better way to go , not practical for a full time contractor , but IMO hand nailing has it's advantages.

 

[PEG688]

  Ah, I see you mentioned a nail gun , you can buy galv. ring shanks for most nail guns. I use Senco guns and I generally shoot Senco nails . The cheaper "off brands " like "Interchange" I find have issues with jamming , the nail strips break apart to easy and other "funkie" happenings. To me the "saving" of "cheap" nail gun nails is lost in the frustrations of using cheap crap.

 I generally by 12 d gun nails ring shank galv. for framing , and 8 d ring shank glav. for sheathing nailing.


  The 12d are just a bit smaller and "gun"  / drive better, and I only buy galv ring shank , because as sure as the sun will rise , IF you buy regular nails some one on the crew will nail off a floor with "sinkers" and you'll be chasing squeaks for ever.


 They do cost about $15.00 more a box but long term thats nuttin , compared to the call back chasing squeaks.


     

[dug]

Those are SIDING nails , like it says on the box . NOT sheathing nails

Yeah, I guess I should have known that, they were the only thing in this one horse town resembling ring shanks and I thought sheathing, siding, what's the diff?

I can get the 8d regular galvanized for nail gun in town. Maybe they would order the ring shanks for me, I'll find out.

[Redoverfarm]

Generally Lowes or HD stock ring shank nails on the east coast not sure about where you are at or what brand of gun you are using.

[MountainDon]

sheathing, siding, what's the diff?

As you noticed those nails are thinner and as PEG pointed out, they will not have the shear strength of a nail meant for sheathing.

Sheathing is the stuff that makes the building stand up strong. Siding is the cosmetic layer that does nothing but makes it look pretty.

[dug]

Generally Lowes or HD stock ring shank nails on the east coast not sure about where you are at or what brand of gun you are using.

Porter cable- HD is 5 hour round trip, I'll try to order.

[Don_P]

Our little building supply can usually get me nails within a week. Chapter 6 in the codebook has the fastening schedules, Tables 602.3.
https://www2.iccsafe.org/states/Virginia/Residential/PDFs/Chapter%206_Wall%20Construction.pdf

An earlier discussion got into staples, I had been researching along those lines as well. I've forgotten where that post is, hope you don't mind if I unload some of what I've found here.
Scroll to the "Alternate Attachment" table for more staple specs. Reading the footnotes it is describing a "full crown" staple. This is all for prescriptive construction, if the building department requires an engineer he will probably step above many of these requirements quickly. The tables give nail length and diameter for various connections. As you just found out, we've taken to calling many different nails by the same pennyweight. A couple of code cycles ago the tables began referring to nails by length and diameter, the footnote specifies the steel qualities.

Shear strength of the wall is increased by using more or larger nails and denser wood. For individual fasteners after proper embedment length is satisfied shear strength is about diameter and density. OSB is denser than plywood.

I remembered an article in JLC about osb and staples after Andrew. There were several studies done in universities and by the APA because the initial scapegoat was the osb sheathing. It turned out that the biggest problem was missing nails, either missing the framing or just plain missing. The APA issued tightened nail spacing guidelines in the aftermath.

During investigation, nails and staples in the storm seemed to pull out or pull through the sheathing, ply or osb, about the same. However the outcome of testing was that osb held nails and staples better, even with up to 5 years standing out in a field. OSB is a dry, compressed, board when we get it. It does take on water and swell. It did not lose strength. That was news to me.

This is  a link to APA's "Wood Structural Shear Walls" and describes nailed and stapled shear walls. It has an interesting section on staples that is worth reading.
http://www.apawood.org/pdfs/managed/Q260.pdf?CFID=6018472&CFTOKEN=90736820

Other problems with sheathing seem to be overdriving fasteners and overspacing. If the nail or staple is overdriven it is not going to do anything close to its intended job.

As a side note I came across the APA post Katrina report and have also attended a lecture by one of the engineers who wrote it. In one area the codes that were put in place after Andrew were strictly enforced. Those homes had significant water damage but were not structurally damaged by Katrina's wind. In another area that had similar conditions but lax enforcement there were multiple structural failures from the wind.

All that said, I usually use either smooth or ring shanked non galvy gun 8's for sheathing, I prefer ring shanks. For us galvy's run close to double, a pretty big hit for a protected use, however if it's going into treated we have to use ACQ approved galvy's.