Dewalt DWHTTR350

Incredible machine. Should be a staple part of your tool kit – I had a very big stapling job to do. Underfloor insulation. 36 monster bags of insulation that needed to be stapled to the underfloor of our place. Seemed easy enough... What makes a huge difference between swaggering and crying into your weetbix for this kind of job is the stapler! I started this monumental "DIY" job with a Trojan stapler I inherited from a friend (a stapler kit from Bunnings). The Trojan wasn't a terrible stapler, but for this job it just couldn't nail it. If there's a bigger job that uses staples I don't know what it is but in the end, I had used roughly ~10,000 staples, 7,000 of which came through the DeWalt. I used the stapler both on the ground (standing) and up on a ladder, at all kinds of angles. Here's why it's so good.

1. It tolerated multiple staple lines in it without failure. The Trojan would only work if you put a single unbroken line of staples in it. It failed nearly every single time you put several lines it it. As soon as it got to the break in staples it jammed. When you're on a ladder and stapling upside down this is enraging. The DeWalt never failed, never jammed once!

2. The method to change staples was clean and crisp, hit a button, the slide rail comes out, you load up the cargo and jam it back home (it's heavy duty so needs to be done with a push). The Trojan had a very lightweight stick with a wing-nut kind of end on it that you unclipped, pulled out and loaded the staples back in. This is absolutely lousy. Multiple times, the wing-nut end caught on my overalls, unclipped and dumped the staples onto the ground. Enraging.

3. The Dewalt is very smooth lined with nothing to catch on. The Trojan has bits that snag on you besides the end bit mentioned in 2. above.

4. The DeWalt has a clip on it so you can suspend the stapler on your jeans / overalls. Up and down the ladder so often meant this was a life-saver. Carrying the insulation, carrying the stapler was something you didn't want to know about with the Trojan.

It's quite a heavy duty thing to hold continuously and use. The punching power is excellent and I had to go through the insulation which can be quite thick requiring you to really push into it.

The only thing which got me was the trigger mechanism that has quite a span on it. No doubt this is part of the punching power distance it needs but I felt like I needed a bigger hand when I first started using it as when you punch the staple in, the handle comes back out quite a lot and it automatically pushes your hand back up the handle towards to body of the stapler, so you have to reposition.

In the end, I had figured out to do it all smoothly in a single motion and think this is an incredible stapler.

Note : I only used Stanely 10mm staples for this (approved for use in this particular stapler) . They are likely a good part of this story as well. I never tried tacks so can't comment on those.