Are you guys using carpet adhesive on your wood after you treat it with Thompsons? I was told by the guy at Lowes that the adhesive would not work after the wood was treated. The directions said do not use on treated wood but I took that as wood that was allready treated. Also, I am having trouble locating stainless staples for my staple gun. It uses a small like 1/4" wide staple I think they are called narrow crown or something like that. Anyone know where to pick some up?

3M 777 spray adhesive worked fine for me. I got my ss staples at Home Depot. They were in the tool section section and hard to find. Might want to ask someone at your local hardware store.

Yeah mine had trouble with the adhesive, i think im gonna have to inject some super glue to get it to hold in a few spots. The staples still hold it down pretty well.

Right now I'm just working on my trailer bunks but I'm gonna have the same problem when I get to the decking on the boat. I'll check into that 777 spray adhesive.

I found stainless staples in the tool section at Home Depot but they were for a hand stapler. I never have any luck with those going all the way in without having to finish driving them with a hammer. I'm looking for them for my air stapler. The ones at HD also said "Not for marine applications" even though they were stainless. I called Fastenal and they said they dont carry them but would look into ordering them for me but I havnt heard back from em yet.

Do the directions mean pressure treated or surface treated as in having a coating on it? I didn't use Thompson's on mine - I used poly. I used a carpet adhesive I bought with the carpet that is basically contact cement. I coated each surface, waited 20-30 minutes and stuck them together. I used the same product on my last boat with Sintra flooring instead of plywood. I just finished the plywood floor, it stuck fine but too soon to know the long-term. The glue on the Sintra is a year old and still just fine.

You can also find brass staples; like stainless, they won't rust.

just started on my carpet last night using 3m 77 on tompsons water seal. seems to have stuck pretty good. couldnt find stainless staples but found some galvanized at menards. got a pnumatic stapler at harbor freight for $20, kicks b@$$! 80psi drives them flush without breaking through the carpet.

The directions just said not to use it on "treated" wood. I took it as meaning pressure treated but the guy still said no. Seems everyone is having luck with the 3M adhesive so I'll just look into that. Gonna stop by Fastenal after work tomorrow and see if they had any luck with my ss staples.

Finally found my stainless staples online. 14 bucks per thousand plus shipping. My stapler is a Bostitch. Just been using the staples that came with it till now. Now that I had to buy some I found out that every opther stapler on the market in this size shoots a 1/4" staple. Mine shoots a 7/32 staple so I can only buy Bostitch brand staples. Wish I had done a little research before that purchase cause I wouldnt have bought it. I hate when manufacturers do stuff like that. Oh well. Thanks guys!!

I used some outdoor carpet glue that Home Depot carries. Real run-of-the-mill stuff, but it holds great.


Remember, that you are best off trying to wrap the carpet around the edges of the wood and stapling from underneath when ever possible. This will keep the carpet is place on its own, and the only time you'd ever have to worry about pulling the carpet up is when you stick a treble hook into it.

That seems dirt cheep for ss staples. Everything I saw was around $50 for 1000

I checked several places online and they all seemed to be 14 to 20 bucks per thousand for the size I needed. My total cost with shipping was 17.97. I ordered them from powertools.us. This is a small 7/32" by 1" finish staple. Stainless was only a dollar or two more than galvanized.

Thompson's says not to use latex (water based) paint for 45 days. Nearly all indoor/outdoor carpet adhesive is also water based so the same thing should apply.

If you really want to seal up and waterproof wood then spar urethane is the way to go and adhesives tend to stick to it better. It's a little more costly and a little harder to work with but since it's getting covered up you can just slop it on there and not worry about brushmarks or small runs and you can use cheap throwaway paintbrushes.

Lowes had a few ss staples but like you said I hate it when the manufacture makes a specialty product, I just used outdoor carpet glue from lowes and it has held good, but i used a outdoor fence porch latex sealer on my wood...