woodworking Woodworking is the skill of making items from wood, and includes cabinet making (cabinetry and furniture), wood carving, joinery, carpentry, and woodturning. History Along with stone, clay and animal parts, wood was one of the first mate ...

and

construction Construction is a general term meaning the art and science to form Physical object, objects, systems, or organizations,"Construction" def. 1.a. 1.b. and 1.c. ''Oxford English Dictionary'' Second Edition on CD-ROM (v. 4.0) Oxford University Pr ...

, a nail is a small object made of

metal A metal (from Greek μέταλλον ''métallon'', "mine, quarry, metal") is a material that, when freshly prepared, polished, or fractured, shows a lustrous appearance, and conducts electricity and heat relatively well. Metals are typicall ...

(or wood, called a tree nail or "trunnel") which is used as a

fastener A fastener (US English) or fastening (UK English) is a hardware device that mechanically joins or affixes two or more objects together. In general, fasteners are used to create non-permanent joints; that is, joints that can be removed or disman ...

, as a peg to hang something, or sometimes as a decoration. Generally, nails have a sharp point on one end and a flattened head on the other, but headless nails are available. Nails are made in a great variety of forms for specialized purposes. The most common is a ''wire nail''. Other types of nails include '' pins'', '' tacks'', ''

brad Brad may refer to: * Brad (given name), a masculine given name Places * Brad, Hunedoara, a city in Hunedoara County, Romania * Brad, a village in Berești-Bistrița Commune, Bacău County, Romania * Brad, a village in Filipeni, Bacău, Romania * ...

s'', ''spikes'', and '' cleats.'' Nails are typically driven into the workpiece by a hammer or

nail gun A nail gun, nailgun or nailer is a form of hammer used to drive nails into wood or other materials. It is usually driven by compressed air (pneumatic), electromagnetism, highly flammable gases such as butane or propane, or, for powder-actuate ...

. A nail holds materials together by

friction Friction is the force resisting the relative motion of solid surfaces, fluid layers, and material elements sliding against each other. There are several types of friction: *Dry friction is a force that opposes the relative lateral motion of ...

in the axial direction and

shear Shear may refer to: Textile production *Animal shearing, the collection of wool from various species **Sheep shearing *The removal of nap during wool cloth production Science and technology Engineering *Shear strength (soil), the shear strength ...

strength laterally. The point of the nail is also sometimes bent over or ''clinched'' after driving to prevent pulling out.

History

Henry Martin Pope - Nailor's Workshop King's Norton - 1908V135

The history of the nail is divided roughly into three distinct periods: * Hand-wrought (forged) nail (pre-history until 19th century) * Cut nail (roughly 1800 to 1914) * Wire nail (roughly 1860 to the present) From the late 1700s to the mid-1900s, nail prices fell by a factor of 10; since then nail prices have increased slightly, reflecting in part an upturn in materials prices and a shift toward specialty nails.

Hand wrought

The

Bible The Bible (from Koine Greek , , 'the books') is a collection of religious texts or scriptures that are held to be sacred in Christianity, Judaism, Samaritanism, and many other religions. The Bible is an anthologya compilation of texts ...

provides a number of references to nails, including the story in

Judges A judge is an official who presides over a court. Judge or Judges may also refer to: Roles *Judge, an alternative name for an adjudicator in a competition in theatre, music, sport, etc. *Judge, an alternative name/aviator call sign for a membe ...

of Jael the wife of Heber, who drives a nail (or tent-peg) into the temple of a sleeping Canaanite commander; the provision of iron for nails by King David for what would become

Solomon's Temple Solomon's Temple, also known as the First Temple (, , ), was the Temple in Jerusalem between the 10th century BC and . According to the Hebrew Bible, it was commissioned by Solomon in the United Kingdom of Israel before being inherited by th ...

; and in connection with the

crucifixion Crucifixion is a method of capital punishment in which the victim is tied or nailed to a large wooden cross or beam and left to hang until eventual death from exhaustion and asphyxiation. It was used as a punishment by the Persians, Carthagi ...

Jesus Christ Jesus, likely from he, יֵשׁוּעַ, translit=Yēšūaʿ, label=Hebrew/Aramaic ( AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesus Christ or Jesus of Nazareth (among other names and titles), was a first-century Jewish preacher and religious ...

. The

Romans Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy * Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *''Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a lette ...

made extensive use of nails. The

Roman army The Roman army (Latin: ) was the armed forces deployed by the Romans throughout the duration of Ancient Rome, from the Roman Kingdom (c. 500 BC) to the Roman Republic (500–31 BC) and the Roman Empire (31 BC–395 AD), and its medieval contin ...

, for example, left behind seven tons of nails when it evacuated the fortress of

Inchtuthil Inchtuthil is the site of a Roman legionary fortress situated on a natural platform overlooking the north bank of the River Tay southwest of Blairgowrie, Perth and Kinross, Scotland (Roman Caledonia). It was built in AD 82 or 83 as the advance ...

in Perthshire in the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the European mainland, continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...

in 86 to 87 CE. The term "penny", as it refers to nails, probably originated in medieval England to describe the price of a

hundred 100 or one hundred (Roman numeral: C) is the natural number following 99 and preceding 101. In medieval contexts, it may be described as the short hundred or five score in order to differentiate the English and Germanic use of "hundred" to des ...

nails. Nails themselves were sufficiently valuable and standardized to be used as an informal

medium of exchange In economics, a medium of exchange is any item that is widely acceptable in exchange for goods and services. In modern economies, the most commonly used medium of exchange is currency. The origin of "mediums of exchange" in human societies is ass ...

. Until around 1800 artisans known as ''nailers'' or ''nailors'' made nails by hand – note the surname Naylor. (Workmen called ''slitters'' cut up iron bars to a suitable size for nailers to work on. From the late 16th century, manual slitters disappeared with the rise of the

slitting mill The slitting mill was a watermill for slitting bars of iron into rods. The rods then were passed to nailers who made the rods into nails, by giving them a point and head. The slitting mill was probably invented near Liège in what is now Bel ...

, which cut bars of iron into rods with an even cross-section, saving much manual effort.) At the time of the

American Revolution The American Revolution was an ideological and political revolution that occurred in British America between 1765 and 1791. The Americans in the Thirteen Colonies formed independent states that defeated the British in the American Revoluti ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

was the largest manufacturer of nails in the world. Nails were expensive and difficult to obtain in the American colonies, so that abandoned houses were sometimes deliberately burned down to allow recovery of used nails from the ashes. This became such a problem in

Virginia Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States, between the Atlantic Coast and the Appalachian Mountains. The geography and climate of the Commonwealth ar ...

that a law was created to stop people from burning their houses when they moved. Families often had small nail-manufacturing setups in their homes; during bad weather and at night, the entire family might work at making nails for their own use and for barter.

Thomas Jefferson Thomas Jefferson (April 13, 1743 – July 4, 1826) was an American statesman, diplomat, lawyer, architect, philosopher, and Founding Father who served as the third president of the United States from 1801 to 1809. He was previously the natio ...

wrote in a letter: "In our private pursuits it is a great advantage that every honest employment is deemed honorable. I am myself a nail maker." The growth of the trade in the American colonies was theoretically held back by the prohibition of new slitting mills in America by the

Iron Act The Iron Act, also called the Importation, etc. Act 1749 (23 Geo. II c. 29), was an Act of the Parliament of Great Britain, which was one of the legislative measures introduced within the system of Trade and Navigation Acts. The Act sought to ...

of 1750, though there is no evidence that the Act was actually enforced. The production of wrought-iron nails continued well into the 19th century, but ultimately was reduced to nails for purposes for which the softer cut nails were unsuitable, including horseshoe nails.

Cut

The

, introduced to England in 1590, simplified the production of nail rods, but the real first efforts to mechanise the nail-making process itself occurred between 1790 and 1820, initially in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

and

, when various machines were invented to automate and speed up the process of making nails from bars of wrought iron. Also in Sweden in the early 1700s

Christopher Polhem Christopher Polhammar (18 December 1661 – 30 August 1751) better known as Christopher Polhem (), which he took after his ennoblement in 1716, was a Swedish scientist, inventor and industrialist. He made significant contributions to the econom ...

produced a nail cutting machine as part of his automated factory. These nails were known as ''cut nails'' because they were produced by cutting iron bars into rods; they were also known as ''square nails'' because of their roughly rectangular

cross section Cross section may refer to: * Cross section (geometry) ** Cross-sectional views in architecture & engineering 3D *Cross section (geology) * Cross section (electronics) * Radar cross section, measure of detectability * Cross section (physics) **Abs ...

. The cut-nail process was patented in America by

Jacob Perkins Jacob Perkins (9 July 1766 – 30 July 1849) was an American inventor, mechanical engineer and physicist. Born in Newburyport, Massachusetts, Perkins was apprenticed to a goldsmith. He soon made himself known with a variety of useful mechanical i ...

in 1795 and in England by Joseph Dyer, who set up machinery in

Birmingham Birmingham ( ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands (county), West Midlands in England. It is the second-largest city in the United Kingdom with a population of 1. ...

. The process was designed to cut nails from sheets of iron, while making sure that the fibres of the iron ran down the nails. The Birmingham industry expanded in the following decades, and reached its greatest extent in the 1860s, after which it declined due to competition from wire nails, but continued until the outbreak of World War I. Cut nails were one of the important factors in the increase in balloon framing beginning in the 1830s and thus the decline of

timber framing Timber framing (german: Holzfachwerk) and "post-and-beam" construction are traditional methods of building with heavy timbers, creating structures using squared-off and carefully fitted and joined timbers with joints secured by large wooden ...

with wooden joints. Though still used for historical renovations, and for heavy-duty applications, such as attaching boards to

masonry Masonry is the building of structures from individual units, which are often laid in and bound together by mortar; the term ''masonry'' can also refer to the units themselves. The common materials of masonry construction are bricks, building ...

walls, ''cut nails'' are much less common today than ''wire nails''.

Wire

Wire nails are formed from wire. Usually coils of wire are drawn through a series of dies to reach a specific diameter, then cut into short rods that are then formed into nails. The nail tip is usually cut by a blade; the head is formed by reshaping the other end of the rod under high pressure. Other dies are used to cut grooves and ridges. Wire nails were also known as "French nails" for their country of origin. Belgian wire nails began to compete in England in 1863.

Joseph Henry Nettlefold Joseph Henry Nettlefold (19 September 1827 – 22 November 1881) was a British industrialist, the Nettlefold in Guest, Keen & Nettlefolds. He was born in London to John Sutton Nettlefold who, in 1854, dispatched him to manage the business o ...

was making wire nails at Smethwick by 1875. Over the following decades, the nail-making process was almost completely automated. Eventually the industry had machines capable of quickly producing huge numbers of inexpensive nails with little or no human intervention. With the introduction of cheap wire nails, the use of wrought iron for nail making quickly declined, as more slowly did the production of cut nails. In the United States, in 1892 more steel-wire nails were produced than cut nails. In 1913, 90% of manufactured nails were wire nails. Nails went from being rare and precious to being a cheap mass-produced commodity. Today almost all nails are manufactured from wire, but the term "wire nail" has come to refer to smaller nails, often available in a wider, more precise range of gauges than is typical for larger common and finish nails.

Materials

Nails were formerly made of bronze or

wrought iron Wrought iron is an iron alloy with a very low carbon content (less than 0.08%) in contrast to that of cast iron (2.1% to 4%). It is a semi-fused mass of iron with fibrous slag inclusions (up to 2% by weight), which give it a wood-like "grain" ...

and were crafted by blacksmiths and nailors. These crafts people used a heated square iron rod that they forged before they hammered the sides which formed a point. After reheating and cutting off, the blacksmith or nailor inserted the hot nail into an opening and hammered it. Later new ways of making nails were created using machines to shear the nails before wiggling the bar sideways to produce a shank. For example, the Type A cut nails were sheared from an iron bar type guillotine using early machinery. This method was slightly altered until the 1820s when new heads on the nails' ends were pounded via a separate mechanical nail heading machine. In the 1810s, iron bars were flipped over after each stroke while the cutter set was at an angle. Every nail was then sheared off of taper allowing for an automatic grip of each nail which also formed their heads. Type B nails were created this way. In 1886, 10 percent of the nails that were made in the United States were of the soft steel wire variety and by 1892, steel wire nails overtook iron cut nails as the main type of nails that were being produced. In 1913, wire nails were 90 percent of all nails that were produced. Today's nails are typically made of steel, often dipped or coated to prevent

corrosion Corrosion is a natural process that converts a refined metal into a more chemically stable oxide. It is the gradual deterioration of materials (usually a metal) by chemical or electrochemical reaction with their environment. Corrosion engi ...

in harsh conditions or to improve

adhesion Adhesion is the tendency of dissimilar particles or surfaces to cling to one another ( cohesion refers to the tendency of similar or identical particles/surfaces to cling to one another). The forces that cause adhesion and cohesion can b ...

. Ordinary nails for wood are usually of a soft, low-carbon or "mild" steel (about 0.1% carbon, the rest iron and perhaps a trace of silicon or manganese). Nails for concrete are harder, with 0.5–0.75% carbon.

Types

Horseshoe nails for lead came glasswork 01

Types of nail include: * Aluminum nails – Made of aluminum in many shapes and sizes for use with aluminum

architectural metals Metals used for architectural purposes include lead, for water pipes, roofing, and windows; tin, formed into tinplate; zinc, copper and aluminium, in a range of applications including roofing and decoration; and iron, which has structural and ...

* Box nail – like a ''common nail'' but with a thinner shank and head * Brads are small, thin, tapered nails with a lip or projection to one side rather than a full head or a small finish nail ** Floor brad ('stigs') – flat, tapered and angular, for use in fixing floor boards ** Oval brad – Ovals utilize the principles of fracture mechanics to allow nailing without splitting. Highly anisotropic materials like regular wood (as opposed to wood composites) can easily be wedged apart. Use of an oval perpendicular to the wood's grain cuts the wood fibers rather than wedges them apart, and thus allows fastening without splitting, even close to edges ** Panel pins * Tacks or Tintacks are short, sharp pointed nails often used with carpet, fabric and paper Normally cut from sheet steel (as opposed to wire); the tack is used in upholstery, shoe making and saddle manufacture. The triangular shape of the nail's cross section gives greater grip and less tearing of materials such as cloth and leather compared to a wire nail. **

Brass Brass is an alloy of copper (Cu) and zinc (Zn), in proportions which can be varied to achieve different mechanical, electrical, and chemical properties. It is a substitutional alloy: atoms of the two constituents may replace each other wit ...

tack – brass tacks are commonly used where

may be an issue, such as furniture where contact with human skin salts will cause corrosion on steel nails **

Canoe A canoe is a lightweight narrow water vessel, typically pointed at both ends and open on top, propelled by one or more seated or kneeling paddlers facing the direction of travel and using a single-bladed paddle. In British English, the ter ...

tack – A clinching (or clenching) nail. The nail point is tapered so that it can be turned back on itself using a clinching iron. It then bites back into the wood from the side opposite the nail's head, forming a rivet-like fastening. ** Clench-nails used in building clinker boats. ** Shoe tack – A clinching nail (see above) for clinching leather and sometimes wood, formerly used for handmade

shoe A shoe is an item of footwear intended to protect and comfort the human foot. They are often worn with a sock. Shoes are also used as an item of decoration and fashion. The design of shoes has varied enormously through time and from culture ...

s. **

Carpet A carpet is a textile floor covering typically consisting of an upper layer of pile attached to a backing. The pile was traditionally made from wool, but since the 20th century synthetic fibers such as polypropylene, nylon, or polyester hav ...

tack **

Upholstery Upholstery is the work of providing furniture, especially seats, with padding, springs, webbing, and fabric or leather covers. The word also refers to the materials used to upholster something. ''Upholstery'' comes from the Middle English w ...

tacks – used to attach coverings to furniture **

Thumbtack A drawing pin (in British English) or thumb tack (in North American English) is a short nail or pin used to fasten items to a wall or board for display and intended to be inserted by hand, usually using the thumb. A variety of names is used ...

(or "push-pin" or "drawing-pin") are lightweight pins used to secure paper or cardboard. * Casing nails – have a head that is smoothly tapered, in comparison to the "stepped" head of a ''finish nail''. When used to install casing around windows or doors, they allow the wood to be pried off later with minimal damage when repairs are needed, and without the need to dent the face of the casing in order to grab and extract the nail. Once the casing has been removed, the nails can be extracted from the inner frame with any of the usual nail pullers * Clout nail – a roofing nail * Coil nail – nails designed for use in a pneumatic nail gun assembled in coils * Common nail – smooth shank, wire nail with a heavy, flat head. The typical nail for framing * Convex head (nipple head, springhead) roofing nail – an umbrella shaped head with a rubber gasket for fastening metal roofing, usually with a ring shank * Copper nail – nails made of copper for use with copper flashing or slate shingles etc. * D-head (clipped head) nail – a common or box nail with part of the head removed for some pneumatic nail guns * Double-ended nail – a rare type of nail with points on both ends and the "head" in the middle for joining boards together. Se
this patent
Similar to a dowel nail but with a head on the shank. * Double-headed (duplex, formwork, shutter, scaffold) nail – used for temporary nailing; nails can easily pulled for later disassembly * Dowel nail – a double pointed nail without a "head" on the shank, a piece of round steel sharpened on both ends * Drywall (plasterboard) nail – short, hardened, ring-shank nail with a very thin head * Fiber cement nail – a nail for installing

fiber cement siding Fiber cement siding ("fibre cement cladding" in the United Kingdom and "fibro" in Australia) is a building material used to cover the exterior of a building in both commercial and domestic applications. Fiber cement is a composite material ...

* Finish nail (bullet head nail, lost-head nail) – A wire nail with a small head intended to be minimally visible or driven below the wood surface and the hole filled to be invisible * Gang nail – a

nail plate A nail is a claw-like plate found at the tip of the fingers and toes on most primates. Nails correspond to the claws found in other animals. Fingernails and toenails are made of a tough protective protein called alpha-keratin, which is a polymer. ...

* Hardboard pin – a small nail for fixing hardboard or thin plywood, often with a square shank * Horseshoe nail – nails used to hold horseshoes on hoofs * Joist hanger nail – special nails rated for use with

joist hanger A joist is a horizontal structural member used in framing to span an open space, often between beams that subsequently transfer loads to vertical members. When incorporated into a floor framing system, joists serve to provide stiffness to the su ...

s and similar brackets. Sometimes called "Teco nails" ( × .148 shank nails used in metal connectors such as

hurricane tie A tie, strap, tie rod, eyebar, guy-wire, suspension cables, or wire ropes, are examples of linear structural components designed to resist tension. It is the opposite of a strut or column, which is designed to resist compression. Ties may be m ...

s) * Lost-head nail – see finish nail * Masonry (concrete) – lengthwise fluted, hardened nail for use in concrete * Oval wire nail – nails with an oval shank * Panel pin * Gutter spike – Large long nail intended to hold wooden gutters and some metal gutters in place at the bottom edge of a roof * Ring (annular, improved, jagged) shank nail – nails that have ridges circling the shank to provide extra resistance to pulling out *

Roof A roof ( : roofs or rooves) is the top covering of a building, including all materials and constructions necessary to support it on the walls of the building or on uprights, providing protection against rain, snow, sunlight, extremes of te ...

ing (clout) nail – generally a short nail with a broad head used with

asphalt shingle An asphalt shingle is a type of wall or roof shingle that uses asphalt for waterproofing. It is one of the most widely used roofing covers in North America because it has a relatively inexpensive up-front cost and is fairly simple to install. ...

s, felt paper or the like * Screw (helical) nail – a nail with a spiral shank - uses including flooring and assembling pallets * Shake (shingle) nail – small headed nails to use for nailing shakes and shingles * Sprig – a small nail with either a headless, tapered shank or a square shank with a head on one side. Commonly used by glaziers to fix a glass plane into a wooden frame. * Square nail – a cut nail * T-head nail – shaped like the letter T * Veneer pin * Wire (French) nail – a general term for a nail with a round shank. These are sometimes called French nails from their country of invention * Wire-weld collated nail – nails held together with slender wires for use in nail guns

Sizes

Most countries, except the

, use a

metric system The metric system is a system of measurement that succeeded the decimalised system based on the metre that had been introduced in France in the 1790s. The historical development of these systems culminated in the definition of the Interna ...

for describing nail sizes. A ''50 × 3.0'' indicates a nail 50 mm long (not including the head) and 3 mm in diameter. Lengths are rounded to the nearest millimetre. For example, finishing nail* sizes typically available from German suppliers are: * Drahtstift mit Senkkopf (Stahl, DIN 1151)

United States penny sizes

In the

, the length of a nail is designated by its penny size.

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, also known as cement or glue, for greater holding power; also resin- or vinyl-coated; coating melts from friction when driven to help lubricate then adheres when cool; color varies by manufacturer (tan, pink, are common) * Common: a common construction wire nail with a disk-shaped head that is typically 3 to 4 times the diameter of the shank: ''common'' nails have larger shanks than ''box'' nails of the same size * Cut: machine-made square nails. Now used for masonry and historical reproduction or restoration * Duplex: a common nail with a second head, allowing for easy extraction; often used for temporary work, such as concrete forms or wood scaffolding; sometimes called a "scaffold nail" * Drywall: a specialty blued-steel nail with a thin broad head used to fasten gypsum wallboard to wooden framing members * Finish: a wire nail that has a head only slightly larger than the shank; can be easily concealed by countersinking the nail slightly below the finished surface with a nail-set and filling the resulting void with a filler (putty, spackle, caulk, etc.) * Forged: handmade nails (usually square), hot-forged by a blacksmith or nailor, often used in historical reproduction or restoration, commonly sold as collectors items *

Galvanized Galvanization or galvanizing ( also spelled galvanisation or galvanising) is the process of applying a protective zinc coating to steel or iron, to prevent rusting. The most common method is hot-dip galvanizing, in which the parts are submerged ...

: treated for resistance to corrosion and/or weather exposure ** Electrogalvanized: provides a smooth finish with some 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; ** Mechanically galvanized: deposits more zinc than electrogalvanizing for increased corrosion resistance * Head: round flat metal piece formed at the top of the nail; for increased holding power * Helix: the nail has a square shank that has been twisted, making it very difficult to pull out; often used in decking so they are usually galvanized; sometimes called decking nails * Length: distance from the bottom of 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 * Pole barn: long shank ( in to 8 in, 6 cm to 20 cm), ring shank (see below), hardened nails; usually oil quenched or galvanized (see above); commonly used in the construction of wood framed, metal buildings (pole barns) * Ring shank: small directional rings on the shank to prevent the nail from working back out once driven in; common in drywall, flooring, and pole barn nails * 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: these are the most common nails used in framing today; same thin diameter as a box nail; cement coated (see above); the bottom of the head is tapered like a wedge or funnel and the top of the head is grid embossed to keep the hammer strike from sliding off * Spike: a large nail; usually over 4 in (100 mm) long * Spiral: a twisted wire nail; ''spiral'' nails have smaller shanks than ''common'' nails of the same size

In art and religion

Nails have been used in art, such as the Nail Men—a form of fundraising common in Germany and Austria during

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

. Before the 1850s bocce and pétanque

boules ''Boules'' () is a collective name for a wide range of games similar to bowls and bocce (In French: jeu or jeux, in Croatian: boćanje and in Italian: gioco or giochi) in which the objective is to throw or roll heavy balls (called in France, ...

were wooden balls, sometimes partially reinforced with hand-forged nails. When cheap, plentiful machine-made nails became available, manufacturers began to produce the ''boule cloutée''—a wooden core studded with nails to create an all-metal surface. Nails of different metals and colors (steel, brass, and copper) were used to create a wide variety of designs and patterns. Some of the old ''boules cloutées'' are genuine works of art and valued collector's items. Once nails became cheap and widely available, they were often used in

folk art Folk art covers all forms of visual art made in the context of folk culture. Definitions vary, but generally the objects have practical utility of some kind, rather than being exclusively decorative. The makers of folk art are typically tr ...

and

outsider art Outsider art is art made by self-taught or supposedly naïve artists with typically little or no contact with the conventions of the art worlds. In many cases, their work is discovered only after their deaths. Often, outsider art illustrate ...

as a method of decorating a surface with metallic studs. Another common artistic use is the construction of sculpture from welded or brazed nails. Nails were sometimes inscribed with incantations or signs intended for religious or mystical benefit, used at shrines or on the doors of houses for protection. File:Magical Roman Nails.jpg, Roman bronze nails with magical signs and inscriptions, 3rd–4th century AD. File:Nagelfigur Mannheim 1915.jpg, ''The Iron Roland of

Mannheim Mannheim (; Palatine German: or ), officially the University City of Mannheim (german: Universitätsstadt Mannheim), is the second-largest city in the German state of Baden-Württemberg after the state capital of Stuttgart, and Germany's ...

'', an example of Nail Men (1915).

References

External links

UK DIY site - description of different types of nails

US DIY site - description of different nails

Nail forging movie
{{DEFAULTSORT:Nail (Fastener) Fasteners Woodworking Ironmongery Metallic objects Articles containing video clips