Reviewing the Senco SHF15 was no easy task, even for 160 square feet of 2.25″ x .75″ white oak flooring. I did not want to rent a floor nailer since I suspected my small project would take weeks thanks to my limited time to work on the flooring. By hindsight, I think that was a good call since it made for a less stressful install. Despite several people telling me this nailer is super reliable, I ran into a glitch with it on the third day of use. Apparently a nail mis-fired and worked its way under the nailing pin. The end result: a totally bent and jammed nailer. My local dealer took it back to send to Senco, and immediately replaced it. This left me with an uneasy sense about the quality of the unit, although it turned out to be the only, albeit significant glitch I ran into. The Senco SHF15 uses a ratcheting system where nails not fully driven by the first hammer swing remain positively positioned for additional swings. I needed 2-4 swings, but was driving the maximum length nail (2″), into some pretty hard flooring and subfloor. It has a rugged composite base that I didn’t worry about scratching the wood with, and it weighs in at a scant 7.6 pounds. The SHF15 Flooring Nailer is designed for installation of 1/2″ to 33/32″ hardwood flooring, however, 1/2″ applications require an optional adapter. The SHF15 drives cleat nails at a 45 degree angle, which seemed to do well at fastening solidly. I had no issues with wood splitting, and cleats are supposed to hold tightly but still allow for expansion and contraction. The nailer also made for nice tight joints, although I was pretty careful about tightening up the joints before nailing too. After a weeks worth of on and off hardwood flooring installation with the SHF15, my wife said I officially looked more ripped. Woohoo! However, my body told me it would have preferred a pneumatic nailer. If I were doing it over again, especially on a larger space, I’d go with a pneumatic nailer like the Porter-Cable FCN200 Pneumatic Flooring Cleat Nailer
About Marc Lyman
