Nail makers (General)

by slowhands , proud of his ancient Dean Forest roots, Monday, August 08, 2011, 17:57 (4860 days ago) @ jmay

For nail making, iron ore was heated with carbon to form a dense spongy mass of metal which was then fashioned into the shape of square rods and left to cool. The metal produced was wrought iron. After re-heating the rod in a forge, the blacksmith would cut off a nail length and hammer all four sides of the softened end to form a point. Then the nail maker would insert the hot nail into a hole in a nail header or anvil and with four glancing blows of the hammer would form the rosehead (a shallow pyramid shape).

In Tudor times, we have evidence that the nail shape had not changed at all as can be seen by the nails found preserved in a barrel of tar on board the 'Mary Rose' - the Tudor flag ship of Henry VIII built in 1509 and recovered from the mud of the Solent in 1982.

It was not until around 1600 that the first machine for making nails appeared, but that tended really to automate much of the blacksmith's job. The 'Oliver' - a kind of work-bench, equipped with a pair of treadle operated hammers - provided a mechanism for beating the metal into various shapes but the nails were still made one at a time.

Eventually, in the USA, towards the late 1700's and early 1800's, a nail machine was devised which helped to automate the process. This machine had essentially three parts. Flat metal strips of around two feet (600mm) in length and the width slightly larger than the nail length was presented to the machine. The first lever cut a triangular strip of metal giving the desired width of the nail, the second lever held the nail in place while the third lever formed the head. The strip of metal was then turned through 180° to cut the next equal and opposite nail shape off the strip. These nails are known as cut nails.

Because the nail up until then was handmade, the first machines were naturally designed to re-produce the same shape of product - a square tapered nail with a rosehead, but only tapered down two sides of the shank.

Soon nail making really took off, primarily in the USA and also the UK with its captive markets of the British Empire. The cut nail was produced in large numbers and various other shapes were devised to suit different purposes.

In the heartlands of the industrial revolution, many nail factories had row upon row of these nail machines and the incessant clatter from them created a deafening sound.

By the start of the 1900's, the first coils of steel round wire were produced and quickly machines were designed to use this new raw material. The first automatically produced wire nails with no human intervention other than to set up the machine immediately showed that this was the way to produce a cheaper nail.

The fact that the nail had a round parallel shank that had up to four times less holding power didn't matter so much. Thinner timbers were being used in construction and other forms of fastening were becoming available if a strong fixing was needed.

The wire nail quickly became the nail of choice as it is today because of its price and the cut nail's day was numbered.

In the 21st century, the nail making process through the ages is now being used by the restoration industry to help to establish when a building was built. Hand made nails suggest the building was built before 1800. Cut nails suggest the building was built between 1800 and the early 1900's. Wire nails will be found in a building put up in the period from then to date.

Automation came in the 1800's but I think most Forest nails were hand made !

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Ἀριστοτέλης A Gloster Boy in the Forest of Dean ><((((*>