A pile of nails.

In engineering, woodworking and construction, a nail is a pin-shaped, sharp object of hard metal, typically steel, used as a fastener. Engineering is the Discipline and Profession of applying technical and scientific Knowledge and Woodworking is the process of building making or carving something using Wood. In the fields of Architecture and Civil engineering, construction is a process that consists of the Building or assembling of Infrastructure The M acro E xpansion T emplate A ttribute L anguage complements TAL, providing macros which allow the reuse of code across Steel is an Alloy consisting mostly of Iron, with a Carbon content between 0 A fastener is a Hardware device that mechanically joins or affixes two or more objects together Nails for specialised purposes may also be made of stainless steel, brass or aluminium. In Metallurgy, stainless steel is defined as a Steel Alloy with a minimum of 11 Brass is any Alloy of Copper and Zinc; the proportions of zinc and copper can be varied to create a range of brasses with varying properties WikipediaNaming

Nails are typically driven into the workpiece by a hammer or by a nail gun driven by compressed air or a small explosive charge. A nail gun, nailgun or nailer is a type of Tool used to drive nails into Wood or some other kind of material A gas compressor is a mechanical device that increases the Pressure of a Gas by reducing its Volume. Temperature and layers The temperature of the Earth's atmosphere varies with altitude the mathematical relationship between temperature and altitude varies among five An explosive material is a material that either is chemically or otherwise Energetically unstable or produces a sudden expansion of the material usually accompanied A nail holds materials together by friction in the vertical direction and shear strength in lateral directions. Friction is the Force resisting the relative motion of two Surfaces in contact or a surface in contact with a fluid (e The point of the nail is also sometimes bent over or clinched to prevent it from pulling out.

Nails are made in a great variety of forms for specialized purposes; the common everyday kind of nail is sometimes called a "wire nail" to distinguish it from nails in general. Some kinds of nails are referred to by other words, for example "pins", "tacks," "brads" and "spikes. "

Nails today are usually made of steel. Formerly they were usually of wrought iron, but for some purposes nails are made of copper or (rather) brass. QtubIronPillarJPG|thumb|right| Iron pillar at Delhi India containing 98% wrought iron]] Wrought iron is commercially pure Iron. Copper (ˈkɒpɚ is a Chemical element with the symbol Cu (cuprum and Atomic number 29

History

Nails can be hammered or shot into materials such as wood. A hammer is a tool meant to deliver an impact to an object The most common uses are for driving nails fitting parts and breaking up objects Wood is hard fibrous lignified structural tissue produced as secondary Xylem in the stems of Woody plants notably trees but also shrubs

Nails go back at least to the Ancient Roman period. Ancient Rome was a Civilization that grew out of a small agricultural community founded on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 10th century BC The provision of iron for nails by King David for Solomon's Temple is mentioned in the Bible. David, Arabic: داوود or داود dawud, "beloved" was the second king of the united Kingdom of Israel according to the Hebrew Bible Solomon's Temple (בית המקדש transliterated Beit HaMikdash) also known as the First Temple, was according to Etymology According to the Online Etymology Dictionary, the word bible is from Latin biblia, traced from the same word through Medieval Latin and Late Latin ^[1] Until the end of the 18th century, they were always made by hand, a nailer providing them with a head and point. The 18th century lasted from 1701 to 1800 in the Gregorian calendar, in accordance with the Anno Domini / Common Era numbering system Until the early 17th century there were workmen called slitters who cut up iron bars to a suitable size for nailers to work on, but in 1590 the slitting mill was introduced to England, providing a mechanical means of producing rods of uniform cross-section. As a means of recording the passage of Time, the 17th Century was that Century which lasted from 1601 - 1700 in the Gregorian calendar The slitting mill was a Watermill for slitting bars of Iron into rods In the 19th century, after the invention of machines to make "cut nails", some nails continued to be made by hand, but the handmade nail industry gradually declined and was largely extinct by the end of that century. The 19th century of the Common Era began on January 1, 1801 and ended on December 31, 1900, according to the Gregorian calendar

Manufactured cut nails were first introduced in America at the end of the 18th century. Cut nails are machine-cut from flat sheets of steel (originally iron). They are also called square nails because of their roughly rectangular cross section. In Geometry, a rectangle is defined as a Quadrilateral where all four of its angles are Right angles A rectangle with vertices ABCD would be denoted as In Geometry, a cross section is the intersection of a body in 2-dimensional space with a line or of a body in 3-dimensional space with a plane etc Though still used for historical renovations, and for heavy-duty applications, such as attaching boards to masonry walls, cut nails are much less common today than wire nails. Masonry is the building of structures from individual units laid in and bound together by mortar, and the term "masonry" can also refer to the units themselves

Different types of nails

Types of nail include:

• brass tack
• bullethead nail
• carpet tack
• casing - similar to finish nails but on a larger scale
• clout
• coffin nail
• corrugated
• Dheadnails
• double-ended
• fiber cement
• finish
• horseshoe
• HurriQuake
• lost-head
• masonry - fluted nail for use in concrete
• oval brad
• floor brad (aka 'stigs') - flat, tapered and angular, for use in fixing floor boards
• panel pin
• plastic strip
• gutter spikes
• roofing tack
• shake - small headed nails to use for nailing sidewall shakes
• square
• T
• Teco - 1-1/2 x . Brass tacks is an object used in the popular expression "get down to brass tacks". A carpet is any loom-woven felted textile or grass floor covering A horseshoe is a U-shaped item made of metal or of modern synthetic materials nailed or glued to the Hooves of Horses and some other Draught The HurriQuake nail is a construction nail designed by Ed Sutt for Stanley-Bostitch a division of Stanley Works, and patented in 2004 A rain gutter (also known as eaves trough, guttering or simply as a gutter) is a narrow channel or trough forming the component of a Roof system Vietnam roofjpg|thumb|The roofs of Vietnam.]] A roof is the covering on the uppermost part of a Building. 148 shanks nails used in metal connectors
• veneer pin
• wire
• wire-weld collated

Sizes

Most countries, except the United States, use a metric system for describing nail sizes. In Woodworking, veneer refers to thin slices of wood usually thinner than 3 mm (1/8 inch that are typically Glued onto core panels (typically Wood The United States of America —commonly referred to as the The metric system is a decimalised system of measurement. It exists in several variations with different choices of base units, though the choice of base units does A "50 x 3. 0" indicates a nail 50 mm long (not including the head) and 3 mm in diameter. Lengths are rounded to the nearest millimeter.

USA uses a similar system except nail lengths are given in inches.

United States penny sizes

Nails are usually sold by weight (either in bulk or in boxes). In the US, the length of a nail is designated by its penny size. It is commonly believed that the origin of the term "penny" in relation to nail size is based on the old custom in England of selling nails by the hundred. England is a Country which is part of the United Kingdom. Its inhabitants account for more than 83% of the total UK population whilst its mainland A hundred nails that sold for six pence were "six penny" nails. The larger the nail, the more a hundred nails would cost. Thus the larger nails have a larger number for its penny size. This classification system was still used in England in the 18th century, but is obsolete there.

The penny size is written with a number and the abbreviation d for penny (e. g. - 10d). D is an abbreviation for denarius, a Roman coin similar to a penny; this was the abbreviation for a penny in the UK before decimalisation. The Roman Currency system included the denarius (plural denarii) after 211 BC a small Silver coin, The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom, the UK or Britain,is a Sovereign state located In the management of currencies, decimalisation (or decimalization) is the process of converting from traditional denominations to a " Decimal " A smaller number indicates a shorter nail and a larger number indicates a longer nail. Nails under 1¼ in. , often called brads, are sold mostly in small packages with only a length designation (e. g. ½" (12 mm), 1¹⁄₈" (28 mm), etc. ). In boxes of nails that are packaged for pneumatics nails are called 8 penny nails but have a length of 2-3/8. Some 16d nails are called 16d short and measure 3-1/4". Penny size is not always directly correlated to length because nails with larger shanks and shorter lengths will be the same weight as the standard penny designation.

Terminology

• Box - a wire nail with a head; box nails have a smaller shank than common nails of the same size
• Bright - no surface coating; not recommended for weather exposure or acidic or treated lumber
• Casing - a wire nail with a slightly larger head than finish nails; often used for flooring
• CC or Coated - "cement coated"; nail coated with adhesive (cement) for greater holding power; also resin- or vinyl-coated; coating melts from friction when driven to help lubricate then hardens when cool; color varies by manufacturer (tan, pink, are common)
• Common - a common construction wire nail with a head: common nails have larger shanks than box nails of the same size
• Duplex - a common nail with a second head, allowing for easy extraction
• Finish - a wire nail that does not have a "head"; can be easily concealed
• Galvanized - treated for resistance to corrosion and/or weather exposure

• Electrogalvanized - provides a smooth finish with some corrosion resistance
• Mechanically galvanized - deposits more zinc than electrogalvanizing for increased corrosion resistance
• Hot-dip galvanized - provides a rough finish that deposits more zinc than other methods, resulting in very high corrosion resistance that is suitable for some acidic and treated lumber; often easier to bend than other types of nails

• Head - round flat metal piece affixed to the top of the nail; for increased holding power
• Helix - the nail has a square shank that has been twisted this makes the nail very difficult to pull out; often used in decking
• Length - distance from the head to the point of a nail
• Phosphate-coated - a dark grey to black finish providing a surface that binds well with paint and joint compound and minimal corrosion resistance
• Point - sharpened end opposite the "head" for greater ease in driving
• Ring Shank - small rings on the shank to prevent the nail from being worked back out often used in flooring
• Shank - the body the length of the nail between the head and the point; may be smooth, or may have rings or spirals for greater holding power
• Sinker - Same thin diameter as a box nail, cement coated (see above), the funnel shaped head is easier to nail flat and the head has a grid on the strike surface to keep the hammer strike from slipping; these are the most common nails used in framing today
• Spike - a large nail (usually over 4" - 100 mm)

External links

• UK DIY site Description of different types of nails
• US DIY site description of different nails
• How to forge simple nails
• Nail forging movie

References