Pro Tips for Fastening to Steel and Concrete

Some jobs are harder than others, and as a builder, you probably have a few jobs on your list of least favorite things to do. For many builders, those least favorite jobs include driving fasteners into steel and concrete. When you’re working with wood, drywall, or other, softer materials, you can leverage nail guns to make it quick and easy to drive fasteners. Where steel and concrete are concerned, however, it often requires a lot of time and hard work.

Below, we’ll explore the difficulties you’ll face when using traditional fasteners with these materials. We’re also going to show you a better way to fasten to steel and concrete: The ET&F® (a BECK member) Model 710 fastening system, which is designed for steel and concrete—and offers the same ease of use that you’d get from a nail gun.

The Trouble with Concrete

When you’re fastening to concrete, the traditional method is to use TAPCON screws—and as you know, it’s an arduous job that can be fraught with lots of little problems. For starters, if you need to drive a lot of fasteners into concrete, it can be a time-consuming process.

It starts with using a hammer drill and masonry bit—or several masonry bits, since they tend to wear out and snap off quickly. Simply drilling the pilot holes can be exhausting if there are a lot of them to do. Then, you need to drive the TAPCONs themselves, which can sometimes prove troublesome if the pilot holes are filled with concrete dust, if they’re not quite deep enough, or if they’re not just the right size for the TAPCONs. Even in the best of conditions, you’ll likely end up stripping out a few screw heads—and on occasion, especially if you’re using a powerful drill, you could twist the screw head off entirely.

As you can see, you’ll need to invest not only a lot of time and energy into this process, but also money in supplies since you’ll need not only powerful drills, but also the TAPCONs, plus a supply of masonry bits to get through the job.

The Trouble with Steel

Much like concrete, steel can also prove difficult to work with. The easiest fastening systems include building components that come with pre-drilled holes, but if you’re fastening these components to other steel components, it can take a lot of time to correctly assemble nuts, bolts, and washers.

Other times, you may need to drill through steel building components—and as with concrete, you’ll need a good drill, a supply of expensive drill bits meant for metal, and plenty of time and energy to make all the necessary holes. In other scenarios, you can use more specialized steel fasteners like self-drilling screws, but since these require a lot of pressure, it can be an exhausting job if you have to drive a lot of screws.

The ET&F® Model 710 is Your Solution to Troubles with Concrete and Steel

Rather than waste a lot of time and effort with these mentioned options, you could make projects much easier with the ET&F® Model 710 fastening system. This is a fastening system designed specifically to work with both concrete and steel, and it’s just as easy to use as a regular nail gun. What’s more, you can also use it for drywall, subflooring, flooring, insulation, and more—which means it’s a very versatile tool to have in your kit.

When it comes to steel and concrete, however, the ET&F® Model 710 has the power to drive into poured concrete or 10-gauge steel. With this system, you can drive smooth and knurled collated pins between 1 1/8 inches long to 3 1/2 inches long. You can also use this system to drive specialized SCRAIL® STEELTHREAD STRUCTURAL fasteners, which is a fantastic solution for fastening flooring to steel substrates up to 2.5 millimeters in thickness.

 Follow the link below and discover what makes the ET&F® Model 710 an easier, more efficient alternative to traditional fastening methods for steel and concrete.