# Window Trim Inside/Sash Stop Question: Nails or Screws?



## Lovegasoline (Sep 27, 2009)

I'm not very familiar with window trim. I'm doing a lot of renovation work including laboriously stripping paint off a window frame. 

My question regards what fasteners to use to attach the trim.

The inside trim, I think it's called a side stop or sash stop, had a large gap with lots of crud behind it. Workers were skim coating the room's walls and I asked about tightening up the window trim so there was no gap. he used his 5-in-1 paint tool to scrape out the crud behind the trim. Then he screwed the trim really tightly to the window frame. I noticed there were originally nails holding the trim but they were a little loose. The guy did a quick and dirty job ... at first he was going to drive the screws without drilling a countersink for the head, and when I mentioned that he used his Philips bit as a counter sink to make a rough hole and then drove the screws in really tight. He put many screws on each side. No more gap. I wasn't sure about the use of screws at the time, but I was busy with other stuff and he was in a hurry. 

I'm ready to complete my patching of the wood and priming it. However, I'm now wondering about those screws. I'd need to fill the screw head holes ... at which point they'll be completely hidden in the trim. It seems to me that if the trim ever needs to be removed in the future to access the window, it will be impossible to remove without destroying it. With nails it can just be carefully pryed off.

Should I remove the screws, patch the holes, and use nails?


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## Steve Neul (Sep 2, 2011)

I think screws are an overkill for trim unless there is some warpage you need a better hold to pull it down. I would just use 16ga nails and putty it.


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## Toolman50 (Mar 22, 2015)

Normally new interior trim is installed with finish nails.


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## Lovegasoline (Sep 27, 2009)

The molding was a fight to get to lay flat. 

I'm just wondering if I try nailing it and remove the screws to see if it will hold. If the window needs work in the future, how will the molding be removed if it's attached with buried and concealed screws?

Also, this molding is in poor shape, the edge is chewed up, ripped, and gouged badly in lots of places destroying the edge profiling, in some places 3/8 -1/2" and I'm not going to be able to repair it ... so at some time in the future I may be able to find a scavenged matching piece from elsewhere in the building.


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