By Mark Clement
November 14, 2006—There’s not much to say about a hammer tacker, except that when you find a good one, grab it. And make the other guys on the crew get their own. You’re keeping yours where you can see it.
Bostitch’s PC2K is one you’ll be keeping your hands on. It’s well-designed for the rapid-fire, hard-hitting action that hammer tackers get: stapling tar paper to the roof deck, fastening house wrap on side walls, even clipping the paper or foam flanges of insulation products inside the house.
Curve Appeal. One of the tool’s best features is its curved design, which leaves room between your knuckles and the work when dispensing a staple. Traditional hammer tackers I’ve owned—for reasons I can’t explain—have straight bodies. To get the staples out with them, it’s best to strike with the head as flat as possible to the work. This essentially requires you to punch the building you’re papering about, oh, a thousand times. Not fun.
The space the PC2K kindly leaves for your knuckles is really quite thoughtful, almost like a gift from the designer. Thank you from my knuckles. The handle also has a nice rubber grip that makes the tool easy to hang onto in one-off and rapid fire hits. And the tapered body fits nicely in the extra hammer loop on my tool belt, so I can carry the tool around without fear of it working its way through the loop and falling.
Output. Bostitch recommends 1/4- and 1/2-inch STCR5019 PowerCrown staples, but Brand X 1/4-, 3/8-, and 1/2-inch crown staples work too. It carries 168 (two sticks) fully loaded. That’s enough staples to keep you running down rolls of paper at a nice clip.
As for dispensing staples, I’ve found the PC2K to be one of the most dependable hammer tackers I’ve ever used. It rarely jams and sets staples well whacking out tar paper, house wrap or even putting up sheet plastic behind yet-to-be-framed basement stud walls. It’ll dispense staples as fast as I can pound it down onto the work, too. Sweet.
The only time I had trouble getting staples to dispense was in the awkward situation of installing Styrofoam vent baffles in rafter bays before adding insulation. The problem, especially with the baffles closest to the floor, was that I couldn’t hit the tool hard enough against the work to dispense a staple every time. The result was that unfired staples piled up in the chamber. Once I figured it out, however, I was able to tune up my swing and fully dispense staples most of the time.
An unintended consequence of this was I found out how easy it was to clear jams (which I didn’t have in other work). One whack of the armature against the edge of a rafter and the log-jam was expelled tout suite.
Toughness. The die-cast frame and hardened components of the PC2K make for a reliable, solidly built tool. None of the moving parts rattle, wiggle or otherwise look like they’re going to be dumpster-bound after pounding out a couple of roofs—or after the tool takes the express train from a second story gutter to the sidewalk.
Re-Loading. The re-loading mechanism on this tool took me a while to get used to, but once I did I was impressed. Unlike other staplers, the Bostitch plunger doesn’t come fully out of the tool. Instead it extends partially out the back and then stops, revealing a staple chamber under the tool.
That means that not only can I not drop the plunger off the roof or ladder (and I’ve done it), but I have to turn the tool upside down to load it. As a result, I’m not spilling staples all over the place. And the staples don't have to slide down the full length of the chamber-shaft as with other tackers, so I can load a bunch in there and not risk jams I can’t see. There’s even a counter on the bottom of the staple chamber. Sweet detail.
The actual release button on the plunger is counterintuitive to use to me for some reason. Nevertheless, I got used to it, and it works better than the other tools that I can figure out without thinking first.
Slammed! Bostitch loaded the PC2K with a smart design perfect for life on some of the jobsite’s most abusive tasks, combined it with sensible features that make the tool easier to use and operate, and wrapped it all up in nearly bombproof materials. Nice work.
Mark Clement is a remodeler and author of The Carpenter’s Notebook and Kid’s Carpenter’s Workbook, Fun Family Projects! Find out more at www.TheCarpentersNotebook.com.
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