I have a fence with 1/2” dog eared pickets nailed to 2x4 rails. Can somebody please tell me what nails will hold the pickets on for good? This is getting ridiculous.

Deck screws

Stainless Steel square drive
deck screws is all I use. Never rust.

That might be best.

A 3rd for screws. I prefer a star bit to square.

The best I have used are what I call a barn nail. Have a ring shank portion from the point back. The best ones are a black. Tried some galv. ones and they broke in a year or two. The black ones worked great. I could not find the last time I was after some though.
If you need big ones might need to pre drill to get them started.
Before torx bolts became all the rage we used them on pole barn builds, etc. Simply worked great on fences too.

Edit, I see now the type of fence you are building. Not the type of fence I build so my advice is not useful. Sorry.

quote:

Originally posted by smschulz:

Stainless Steel square drive deck screws is all I use. Never rust.

Me too.

Stainless screws or those ringed nails. But make sure they are galvanized or they’ll rust thru in a heartbeat. I built a fence around my first house. 281 linear feet and I wish I’d have used screws v nails.

I used the dark red deck screws. I stained all the fence slats and stringers dark walnut before putting them up. The dark red blends in very nicely.

Quick easy and good… Galvanized ring shank nails with my cordless Milwaukee nail gun. Three nails per crossmember, Pow pow pow!

Stainless screws probably even better. Probably much more expensive and hard to find around here with a square or star head.

The regular coated decking screws from the big box stores suck in my experience and will rust pretty quick.


A link would be nice to some good, affordable, stainless screws online.

Screw it/them and use stainless if you can... the down side is they will last longer than the wood. I prefer the star drive heads to square.... if the wood wants to split then just drill a small hole in the board first.

https://www.amazon.com/Deck-Pl...aps%2C68&sr=8-5&th=1