Porter-Cable NS150A: Discontinued — What to Buy Instead

The NS150A was an 18-gauge narrow crown stapler from Porter-Cable’s pneumatic range, discontinued along with much of that line.

Staples versus brads

These get treated as interchangeable and they are not.

A brad is a single pin. It holds by friction along its length, and in soft material or across a joint under tension it pulls through.

A narrow crown staple is two legs joined by a crown. The crown sits against the surface and spreads the load, and the two legs resist twisting. For attaching plywood backs to cabinets, fixing drawer bottoms, tacking on glue blocks and anything holding sheet material, a staple holds several times better than a brad of the same gauge.

The cost is a visible crown rather than a small round hole, which is why brads win on show surfaces and staples win everywhere hidden.

What to buy

The Bostitch SX1838K, linked below, is an 18-gauge 7/32 in narrow crown stapler — the same class of tool, still current, with readily available staples.

The crown width is worth checking against whatever staples you can get locally. 7/32 in is the common narrow crown, but 1/4 in also exists and the magazines are not interchangeable.

The combination option

Some tools take both 18-gauge brads and narrow crown staples from the same magazine. They are a reasonable compromise for a shop that does not want two tools, and the usual criticism is fair: they are slightly worse at both jobs than a dedicated tool, mostly through more frequent jams.

If you use one far more than the other, buy the dedicated tool for that job.

Old tool, new O-rings

As with every pneumatic nailer: the metal lasts, the rubber does not. A tool that leaks or fires weakly usually wants a rebuild kit rather than replacing, and kits for common Porter-Cable models remain available through parts suppliers.