Arrow Fastener ETFX50 Heavy Duty Professional Electric Staple and Nail Gun
Review by Baron Williams : Great easy to use staple gun that also drives 5/6" nails

I recently bought this staple/nail gun for my wife. It has the ability to drive BN1810 nails (5/8" 18 gauge brad nails) and 6 sizes of T50 staples (1/4", 5/16", 3/8", 1/2", 9/16", 17/32"). We have used it as a stapler to reupholster chairs. For this purpose, this tool is wonderful. It effortlessly staples through the thick vinyl fabric and into the wood of the seat. This tool saves a lot of time and effort. You do need to hold the unit firmly against the chair for the staples to properly penetrate the chair; otherwise you get a little kickback resulting in imperfect results. This is to be expected because of the light weight nature of this tool. A much heavier air based gun wouldn't have as much of a kickback problem, simply because it weighs so much more. So keep this in mind. Hold the tool firmly, and you should be very happy with the results.

Because the storage case is designed to be light weight, it is not as tough as I would like, but everything fits nicely into the storage case and there is room for plenty of nails and staples. The cord is long enough for most jobs. The tool fits nicely in the hand. It works great. We haven't had any problems with it.

There is one negative to this tool. No where on this tool is there information about the sizes of staples it can use. It just says it takes T50 staples. This means if you lose the instructions, and forget what sizes to use, you will simply have to guess. Another tool we looked at buying had this information printed right on the tool. However, it didn't come with a storage case, and wasn't as well built.

As a nailer that accepts only 5/8" brad nails, it is not that useful. There is a nail set attachment (ETF50XP) which I don't have that you can get for this tool that makes it more useful as a nailer. I tested it stand alone on tough oak. It will drive the 5/8" brad nails perfectly into tough oak without a problem. Again, follow the instructions and put force on the unit as shown and you won't have any problems. This is quite a powerful tool if used right. Many of the complaints in other reviews are caused by kickback, which is from people misusing the tool. If you don't hold it right, you will get kickback and bad results. Like any other tool, take the time to learn to use it properly.

Like many other tool users, I've found that cordless tools are more of a pain then they are worth. The batteries get bad fast. You end up buying batteries all the time. Without new freshly charged batteries, most cordless tools become very unreliable. Nothing is worse than using a cordless tool only to find that the batteries are drained 5 minutes after you just started your project! I am glad Arrow made this a corded unit and put a long cord on it so you'll pretty much never need an extension cord for it.

I highly recommend this product. It is very light weight, easy to use, has a long cord, fits nicely in the hands, is well built, very powerful, and doesn't require an inconvenient air compressor.

Arrow Fastener ETFX50 Heavy Duty Professional Electric Staple and Nail Gun
Review by Victor H. Agresti "remodeling-guy" : My ETFX 50 stapler works well...

Arrow Fastener ETFX 50 Heavy Duty Professional Electric Staple and Nail Gun

I bought this staple gun for my wife to use when installing insulation as part of a whole house renovation. Her hand isn't strong enough to use a manual stapler for very long. It also works well for chair upholstering and similar chores.

Pros:

- It's sufficiently powerful to drive 9/16" staples into hardwood.

- No misfires, jams, double-staples, etc.; after firing many thousands of staples.

- Sufficiently light, well balanced, and a nice handle, to use all day with comfort.

- You can staple to the edge of the tool, since nothing protrudes beyond the "muzzle".

- The staple magazine and the locking slide is all steel. It works easily every time, and it's intuitive.

- The 10' cord results in no extension cord most of the time.

- A parts list is provided, with reasonable prices.

- The blow-molded case actually works pretty well, and protects the tool when carrying or storing. There's some room for spare staples or nails, but not much.

- Takes 6 sizes of T50 staples (1/4", 5/16", 3/8", 1/2", 9/16", 17/32").

- It's electric with a 100% duty cycle, which means it can used it all day with no breaks. Also, no air-compressor (and hose) is needed.

- It fires BN1810 nails (5/8" 18 gauge brad nails), but since I own two air-pin-nailers, we have no need for another pin nailer.

Cons:

- The trigger lock is located where your right thumb goes, if right-handed. As a result, it's easy to mistakenly set the trigger lock.

- The electric cord is plastic and very stiff, especially in cold weather. A flexible rubber cord, which nearly all top-end tools use, would be a big improvement.

- A larger magazine would have been nice.

- The tool will fire if it's empty, which it shouldn't do.

- There's a staple "view port" near the nose. But it's so small, you can't tell if there are 6 staples remaining, or 100. The tool should have a much larger/longer port, so you could see if it needs reloading before climbing a ladder, etc.

- The staple slide has to be completely removed and set aside to reload. After sliding in a new pack of staples, you reinsert the slide. A better designed stapler would work like any air nailer, where you never remove a slide from the tool.

- Several Amazon reviewers had major troubles with their stapler; from frequent jams to tool failure. It has a pathetic 90-day warranty, when one year is the industry standard. Although mine has worked fine, perhaps Arrow uses multiple factories to make it, which could explain the inconsistent quality.

Other:

- There's some recoil, but it's minor, and as long as the business end of the tool is held firmly against the wood, the staple seats all the way. Another stapler sufficiently heavy to eliminate most recoil wouldn't be as comfortable to use all day. If the tool is held weakly against the wood, the tool recoil might keep the staple from seating (i.e., operator error).

- Arrow rates this tool at 10-amp with a 14-amp surge. "Surge amps" can be misleading for tools like vacuum cleaners or circular saws, since normal running amps is the important number. However, an electric stapler's entire cycle lasts about 1/4 of a second, so surge amperage is the key indicator of power. This thing draws lots of amps; a staple hit a nail head once and tripped a 20 amp circuit breaker as a result.