crown moulding

I did the top two floors of our place (320 lin ft) and the job turned out very well. It was my first time doing crown. (I did it myself and used these special holder things i got through Lee Valley, they were awesome, allowing me to handle 16' lengths on my own).

Anyways, I painted the moulding and ceiling first so they were an exact match, then installed it using a 16 guage nailer. Boy was i not impressed with how much nail hole filling i had to do. Would you guys suggest using an 18 guage next time or is this too light to hold it? I used a 4.5" moulding.

Its been about a year since i did the job and my butt joints held up well. i cut them flush instead of 45* and overlapping like some people do.

 

18 gauge is pretty light .

Maybe you mean 15 instead of 16 gauge , we use 15 gauge finish nails for trim work like you describe , 18 gauge are brads .

Also , Lee Valley rules .

 

ill verify when i get home but I am sure the CH nailer set I bought came with a brad nailer, framing nailer and 16 guage finishing nailer.

 

Either way , brads are pretty light , you would need to use more nails and end up with more holes , are you nailing into studs or blocking , or just the drywall ?

 

just the drywall at approx 3 ft intervals. Well that sucks about the nails because i hung it all in 2.5 days and took a week to fill holes and paint the spots.

 

You can use brads , but when we do that we usually glue the crown and then the brads are really only holding it till the glue sets up .