When you're finishing, repairing or fabricating furniture, cabinets or installing molding and baseboards... what do you do to hide the small silver brad heads or finishing nail heads?

The premise of these nail sets is simple: If you can push the finishing nail or brad nail heads further into the wood, the tiny hole that is left can be filled with wood filler, spackle or various colored fill sticks for various types of wood.

I used to use framing nails to set the small heads of finishing nails. Larger finishing nails have a small dimple in the head - and I figured that the point of the framing nail would stay in the dimple. Eventhough I would tap the point of the nail (with a hammer) to dull the point, the nails would bend and make larger than needed holes in the wood due to the fact that they slipped off of the finishing nail head at the point of impact. Unlike the framing nail, I like the nail set's broad dimpled tip. It's far less likely to slip off of the brad or finishing nail head. The three sizes provide enough of a strike surface to drive most common sizes of finishing nails and brads.

Unlike Stanley's all-metal nail set, these come in a color coded set so you don't have to look twice at its size. The yellow is 1/32", the gray is 2/32" (actually 1/16") and the red is 3/32" thick.

This Stanley 3-Piece nail set contains nail set catalog number 58-911, 58-912 and 58-913. The cushioned grip is designed for a non-slip grip in all weather conditions - which is good when you need to drive finishing nails in a pouring rain. Unlike Stanley's all-metal nail set, this set will not rust. They're fully hardened, precision-milled steel for extra long life. Stanley says that the long beveled tip makes for easier nail head alignment while striking. I think they should make these nail sets with a larger head so that the hammer strikes the user's hands less frequently. In my opinion, I would rather use a soft-tipped mallet in lieu of a heavy metal hammer. It doesn't take much power to push the tiny nails or brads into the wood unless you're using very hard wood. In that case, use the hammer or mallet sideways.

In ALL cases, please use eye protection. You never know what might fly up into your face!

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