Category: Woodworking Projects

I built a pretty nice toy shelf over the weekend, plus a couple of hours today. Total time was right around 12 hours. This was the first project where I used a pneumatic nailer. I would say that pneumatic shaved at least a few hours off of the project time!

The shelf itself is 5 feet tall, which is what was needed to fit the tall toys. It is pretty sturdy just as is, but no chances were taken (especially with kids), so it is also screwed into two studs.

I did learn a few things with this project…

1. Different length nails require different pressures. 1 inch nails were about 75 psi. 2 inch were about 100 psi. Both needed additional tweaking at the gun, which was very easy. The trick is to start at a lower pressure until you find what works. You can always use a punch and hammer to get the nail in further.
2. Shelf pegs only work for shorter shelves. I ended up wasting time drilling holes for them just to find they would not be strong enough. I ended up using 1×2 supports instead.
3. Side snips come in handy for the occasional nail that doesn’t quite hit its mark.
4. Always double check you have the correct side (top, bottom, left, and right) before routing an edge. We ended up buying some quarter round for trim instead of just having a router made edge. Oh well. The trim does look pretty good and I got more experience with the nailer.

The nailer I used was a Hitachi NT65M2S 2.5 inch finish nailer. I have it hooked up to a 8 gallon Kobalt compressor, which cycled just a few times through the entire project.  

The main goal of this project was to find a better home for some of the kid’s toys. I’d say missing accomplished!