I have a bucket full of air gun nails that are lightly rusted. Can I save these nails and use them? – Dawn Rinehart
Chris Marshall: If the rust is really light and easy to clean off the nail clips, I’d do that before loading them into a nail gun. I wouldn’t want the corrosion to gunk up the inside of the tool and/or lead to jammed nails. I also wouldn’t want any residual rust to end up embedded in my project and cause black staining — that can happen with woods such as oak that have high tannin content. I guess the operative word here is “lightly.” If the gun and the project meant a lot to me, I’d probably still start with some new, clean fasteners.
