Nails are one of the items that no-one can do without. Little children love them even though they have a tendency to abuse them rather than use them Fathers adore them since they ‘fix’ numerous things. Wood workers adore them because, eliminate the nails and there’s hardly a work left they can do. Even some Moms love them, because it offers something to hang things like aprons on.
There are just so many different nails on the market its rather bewildering. Gone are the days when you went into the old general dealer in non-urban areas and said: “give us a pound of 4 inch nails, then.” No, today it’s all fancy Nails have titles and even grander, they have particular uses and even more grand, they are packed in plastic bags. Oh, man, how the times have evolved
“Oh, you intend to fix a metal sheet to a panel then, Laddie?” “Then you will need clout nails, wont you?” “Clout nails?” “Yes, well those are long slender nails with a big head that actually acts as a fastener and avoids the nail pulling through the material.” What’s very interesting as of late is the selection of attractive nails available on the market, called clavos nails. These cover anything from furniture decoration to door decorations. Some of the door decor varieties are in fact hand made and they come in a variety of sizes up to a size fit to brighten a castle door. Furniture decoration by way of hardware is also extremely popular particularly in living area furniture and leather furnishings where a variety of beautifying nails are available to finish off the upholstery job. Another intriguing nail is the corrugated nail, which is a wide nail rather than being long and is corrugated. These nails are employed to bind two cross pieces of wood, together with glue and a fine job they do too, particularly on workbenches and shelving in the garage.
Nails aren’t all manufactured to be hammered home with a hammer – a number of nails, including concrete nails, can in fact be driven home by shooting them into a wall with a gun using a .22 cartridge. Much simpler than clouting the old thumb a couple of times. There are also a number of purpose-designed roofing nails. So, there are nails to fix corrugated iron sheets to wooden trusses, that come with water proof washers, just as there are nails to be used to fix asphalt tiles to a roof. These nails may also be used to fix roofing shingles as they have a big flat head which offers a fastener and won’t fully go through the tile.
There is virtually no place where a nail or two is not used, be it in your house, on the farm, in the retail outlet, even in the church. There are reportedly more than 2000 kinds of nails and the size is determined by measuring its length. England used to be the biggest manufacturers of nails and nails were very scarce in the United States at the time of the American Revolution, so house owners used to make their own nails making use of their fireplaces as furnaces. Even Thomas Jefferson was known to make his own nails. (I’m wondering if they were called presidential nails, maybe used to put his “throne” together?) Today the United States is the largest manufacturer of nails – possibly since they have so many wooden houses?