I was nailing baseboard the wrong way for 4 years until my knee gave it away

Karen Shah · 2026-09-15T19:00:09.516886+00:00

I used to kneel and fire 16 gauge nails straight down through the top of baseboard, and I thought it was fine because the caulk hid everything. Then 6 months ago I was trimming a house in Bakersfield and my knee popped so bad I had to sit on a bucket for an hour, which gave me time to actually look at the boards I just set. Half of them had split the drywall paper and pulled loose from the wall by a hair, and a painter friend pointed out I should be nailing into the bottom plate at a slight angle so the board pulls tight instead. Now I use a 15 gauge angled finish nailer and shim the low spots first, and my callbacks dropped from 3 or 4 a month to almost zero. Anybody else learn a basic habit the hard way like that?

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I was nailing baseboard the wrong way for 4 years until my knee gave it away | Carpenters - The Community Guide