A forgotten technology from the old days of woodworking! (Cut nails)

many people believe the absence of nails is a sign of good craftsmanship i can't say that i really blame them because they don't make nails like they used to the modern nail isn't designed for performance it's designed for price they're cheap to make when wire nails were first introduced about 150 years ago it was great for the building industry but not so great for cabinet makers while you could get a lot more nails for your money they didn't perform as well as the old cut nails did i think that's one of the reasons that the new fangled fasteners didn't fully catch on for about a generation but over time price won out over performance and eventually people forgot what made the old nails so great in this video i'll remind you of the little-known and i think really interesting features that make cut nails superior to wire nails and perhaps a better choice for your next project it's all about anatomy this is a very early roman era forged nail nails like these were obviously handmade one at a time by a blacksmith this was an expensive process that made nails of that day very valuable if you moved out of your house you might extract and take your nails with you notice the large head and the square shaft that tapers along all four sides to a point at the end these features made sense for easily driving it into wood but over time folks figured out a better way to make nails i think it was perfected centuries later when machines were made to cut nails from flat sheets of iron this example is about 200 years old and it looks very different from the ancient forged nail not only is this less expensive to produce by virtue of being machine cut rather than hand forged but the overall design has been improved as well note how this shaft is tapered along only two of the four faces this was by necessity because the sheet it was cut from had two flat faces but that change in shape also changed how the nail worked when you drive a fully tapered nail into a piece of wood the angled sides act as a wedge that can split the board along the grain if you eliminate the taper on two sides of the nail you eliminate that wedging effect across the grain greatly reducing the chance of splitting as long as you align the remaining tapered sides with the grain but why not eliminate the tapers on all four sides making a straight nail that can be oriented in any direction like the modern wire nail because the taper serves an important function and that's what makes a cut nail superior when you drive a cut nail into wood the two tapered sides compress the ends of the fibers folding them downward this creates thousands of tiny barbs that grip the nail surface and resist efforts to draw it back up out of the hole a wire nail does not produce this effect it parts the fibers around the shaft radially rather than downward there have been strength tests done that show a cut nail's gripping power is almost one and a half times greater than a wire nails and believe it or not despite that wedge shape a cut nail is also less likely to split your work piece than a wire nail with its straight shaft because a wire nail again spreads the fibers on either side as the shaft is driven in which creates cross grain pressure and splits are very common especially near the end of a work piece a cut nail however has another anti-splitting feature the blunt tip the sharp square corners at the tip sever the fibers and push them downward as you drive the nail in this doesn't mean you can't split a board with a cut nail especially in hardwood that doesn't compress as well as soft wood in that case you would bore a pilot hole for both cut nails or wire nails but with wire nails you must trade gripping power for split resistance since a larger pilot hole will reduce the grip of a wire nail but a cut nails pilot hole may be bored to match its thickness on the non-tapered direction eliminating any cross grain pressure and the potential split that may result but you still maintain all the gripping power because that comes from the remaining taper sides which run with the grain as we previously discussed so there's no compromise when you bore a pilot hole for a cut nail finally a cut nail requires virtually no head because the tapered shape wedges the wood downward while a wire nail relies on a larger head for strength anyone who's had one of those small head finishing nails pull through the wood knows what i'm talking about so i think we can rest our case for the superiority of the old-fashioned cut nail it holds better it splits less and the heads have a nice traditional look but why would you use nails at all in fine wood working because there are certain situations where a nail is absolutely the best joinery to use and we'll discuss that in a future video see you next time if you sharpen your tools by hand do yourself a favor try one of tren's diamond stones you can start with a card but before long you'll want a full bench stone because these things cut fast they stay perfectly flat you can go from stone to strop to wood and be back to work in under a minute i'll link to my favorites in the notes below this video wait don't go yet if you're new here please subscribe and remember to ring the bell i would really appreciate that give us a thumbs up or better yet leave us a comment i always read them and be sure to check out the latest issue of stumpy nubs woodworking journal it's always packed with tips tricks and tutorials designed to make you a better woodworker

Channel: Stumpy Nubs

Views: 1,218,171

Rating: 4.945364 out of 5

Keywords: woodworking, stumpy nubs, tips, workbench, table saw, scroll saw, drill press, quick tip, band saw, bandsaw, lumber, hack, hand plane, sharpening, tormek, worksharp, diamond stone, water stone, wood turning, bowls, lathe

Id: 7rwcGXIORro

Length: 5min 37sec (337 seconds)

Published: Tue Aug 10 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/WorkingVideo]

L head flooring nails still use that profile today.