compressed-air drills

Ideally, with cordless. You can have two chargers, and two batteries on charge, while you are using the third. It does take a couple seconds to change batteries, but two on charge (at the edge of the deck) helps out.

I remember from some where, that some deck screws have a narrow neck below the heads, and tend to break off easily.

Compressed air drill is worse option than corded drill. The air hose is more clumsy than a power cord, and the compressor is noisy. Changing energy from electric, to air, to motion, is more lost power.

If you're going to be driving several hundered or a thousand deck screws, IMHO a goo quality corded screwgun would be the tool of choice.

On Sun, 23 May 2010 12:26:15 +0000 (UTC), snipped-for-privacy@sdf.lNoOnSePsAtMar.org (Larry W) wrote the following:

If he's going to be doing them for a living, the loooooooooong nosed deck guns are the way to go, as it saves your knees and back. You get

-- Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction. - Blaise Pascal

I used 2 Makita battery drills. One 9.6 volt and one 12 volt. Used one for pilot holes and other to set screws. 700 square foot deck with railings and is 12 feet above ground. 3500 deck screws. 2 batteries for each drill. This was done 10 years ago. Did not know about stainless deck screws at that time ( or if they were available) Going to replace all now with SS screws as the origanal ones have rusted. Composite deck material. Will cost about $300 for screws. WW

Put a custom tapered drill bit in the air and a new cordless with extra charger and batteries to screw them together.

SW

I was given a dead 12V Makita to fix, and agree that the two make a decent combination like that.

So far the ceramic-coated deck screws that I've removed after a year or two in pressure-treated wood have been in good condition. Friday I pulled out some electro-galvanized screws and lags that had been in dry, untreated wood for about 10 years, outdoors protected from rain. Most were rusty but not enough to weaken them.

The stainless deck screws I bought a few years ago stripped or broke more easily than regular steel screws.

jsw

I'll have to be careful stepping out the garden door onto my 16 x 12 cedar deck that doesn't exist, then.

What utter nonsense...

I drove over 2000 screws with a cheap off-brand cordless 14.4 v drill when I built my deck.

Yeah, I think someone hasn't kept up with technology. :-)

I have cheap (what I consider to be disposable) B&D 18volters that would do the job just fine. Like another guys posted, all you need is 3 batteries per drill, which is the minimum for me, anyway.

I never go to a site without a corded electric, as a back-up, but that cord is a PITA. And whoever wants to trade an AC cord for an air hose is adding bricks to their cart, imo.

Do you think the batteries will be good enough when you resurrect those old drills to get those screws out again?

Most all the air drills I have seen tend to be high RPM drills and are quite loud. IIRC they use quite a bit of air also. You may be waiting as much for the compressor to recharge as you would for the batteries to recharge.

I would go for a cordless impact driver, faster and more torque than a cordless drill.

Cheaper still, a corded variable speed drill, they don't give up and have the required torque. A clutched variety would be ideal IMHO.

Good point I missed in my previous post because I was using a drill and driver for the the deck I just finished. You have to be careful not to bury the screw, but my impact driver is actually easier to control than either my corded or battery drill motors, and is less likely to twist your wrist as you get fatigued. It runs quite a while on a charge too. All of my cordless are 14.4V Makita's

BTW, and MOST IMPORTANT - an impact driver does qualify as a NEW TOOL.

Basic criteria of your OP

RonB

I drove 700 or so in the deck then another 2000 in the floor of my house, with my 14.4V PC. I did have one of the packs rebuilt ($35) after the 2000.

For 15 years?

Dragging an air hose beats swinging a hammer, though.

Roger, my answer to you (and others) was that batteries do not last when the job is to just drive a screw after screw.

Apparently, others' experience may be different, and, if so, I will retract my comment about cordless drills.

Who swings a hammer? :-) A gas framing nailer is faster, lighter, and more convenient than any of those.

FWIW, last deck I did, I was much faster laying down the decking with my

I can definitely see where I could be faster with one of those screw self-feeders with the long extension and the depth stop driver. But I'm one of those "one tap to set, 2-3 swings to drive it home" hammer guys, so I can get a pretty fast rhythm going.

The newer ones last pretty long. I'm guessing cheap my 18v Ni-Cad B&D's last about 3X as long as my old

But like we've been saying, three batteries and a quick-charger makes it a moot point.

Batteries, like tires on a car, have to be considered as a consumable. In some cases, the entire drill is a consumable.

Doesn't mean it won't do the job.

If they aren't I'm sure that Makita will be happy to sell him a replacement set, or he can get the old ones rebuilt.