Hi All,

So my father in law and I have been working on a nail down 3/4" solid red oak over 3/4" raised ply subfloor project for a while now.

Like a genius, I neglected our nail count and we ended up running out of cleats with half a living room left

To this point we'd been using 1 3/4" 16 gauge Powernail cleats with our Harborfrieght pneumatic nailers. We'd been going with this cleat size completely based on my father in law's suggestion.

Now i'm trying to find these same cleats again and it's a huge pain in the rear. No one stocks them, I'm going to have to order them from the east coast and wait a week for them to show up.

My suggestion to my father in law... "Why don't we just use 1.5" or 2" cleats which are acceptable according to the manufactures installation instructions? No to mention they are SUPER EASY to come by" His response... "Do you want to go with what's acceptable, or do you want to use the best size cleat?" He doesnt want to use 1.5" because he says we're loosing a quarter inch of grip and he doesnt want to use 2" because he doesnt want shiners going through the bottom of the floor.

So can someone please add a third party perspective to this? In my mind there has to be a reason why 1.5" and 2" are super common, while 1.75" are hard to find and barley ever mentioned. Again, we are putting down 3/4" solid oak over 3/4" plywood subfloor (raised)... so nothing out of the ordinary or anything.

Thank's all!

2" is what nofma specks for 3/4" solid wood on 3/4" wooden subfloors

What length cleat did the manufacturer of your flooring recommend? I have the HF flooring nailer and I've used 2" cleats to install my 3/4" t&g red oak flooring per the flooring manufacturer's directions. I've been using 2" Bostitch cleats which are available in Home Depot and Lowes. The only place you will se the shiners is in the celing of an unfinished basement.....not exactly an eyesore.

Thank's for the reply's.

Bellawood recommends 1.5 to 2" cleats for their 3/4" products. The problem is that my pops in law is a perfectionist who swears by Powernail.

Long story short, i ended up finding a box on Amazon for a very fair price... so I just caved and went with 1 3/4".

On a side note, I was doing the last 4-5 courses with a Freeman palm cleat nailer so the shorter cleat was probably a good thing in that respect. Those cleats have a tendency to want to fold over, especially if you hit a hard spot on the board.

You didn't cave....you made a wise decision. He's a perfectionist....you're married to his daughter....can you see where I'm going with this?

Haha, I probably could have ended this discussion early by also mentioning he paid for a third of the house

You are a lucky guy!!