hand forged nails

[farmbif]

I spent some time today replacing rotted boards on my wood shed and much to my surprise I found hand forged nails in some of the boards protected by the overhanging tin roof. no one knows for sure how old my house is or the rest of the buildings on the property. county records only go back to 1900. but it is rumored that my place is the oldest in the valley here and older folks have said parts of the house are at least as old as civil war. the woodshed might be the oldest structure on the property and the tobacco barn is made of all axe cut and axe shaped logs, no saw marks on any of the wood in there.
I'm guessing hand forged nails could push the date back to the 1830's or earlier. anyone know anything about this kind of stuff.

[country gent]

A lot of the old timers would tear something down and salvage the nails out of it for future use. Was one of the boys chores to straighten the nails for use again. At one time nails were a precious commodity yours are some of those.

[15meter]

The house I was raised in was started in 1850 according to the township records. Like most homes from that era, they were added onto as money was available. During remodeling of the oldest section, dad and I pulled a lot of cut nails. That section, outer headers were hand hewn 8x8's. Floor joists were logs mortised into the 8x8's. With bark still on several of them.

3 years ago my mother passed away and I had the dubious pleasure of being the executor of the estate.

The people who bought the house paid for a home inspection. The inspector made up a fancy report with a whole bunch of photos and a description of each one.

Best photo was of one of the log floor joists with no bark with some bug holes highlighted.

Description read: "evidence of insect infestation, no current insect activity detected but a certified exterminator should be brought in".

170 year old bug holes needed an exterminator.

Got a good laugh out of that one.

[Battis]

My house was built in 1892 and all the old nails I've found during renovations are square. A half mile from my house, on a river, was a nail factory built in 1795. Jacob Perkins, the man who built the nail factory near my house, is mentioned in this article. Are they the same as hand forged nails? Not sure.
https://monroeengineering.com/blog/cut-vs-wire-nails-whats-the-difference/

[GregLaROCHE]

I’ve come across lots of them over here. Lots of times they were driven completely through and bent over forming something like a rivet.

[pworley1]

I remember that my grandfather had an anvil that had a slot and hole he used to make horseshoe nails.

[HWooldridge]

Cut nails and hand forged are two different things. You will find square nails that were cut from sheet iron in a factory and never touched by a smith.

Wiki has this to say:

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)

I've run a blacksmithing shop on the side for about 40 years and I shudder to think about making nails all day, every day...or by the fireplace in the evening, which is what a lot of families practiced as a cottage industry before factory nails replaced the need.

[Gator 45/70]

I spent some time today replacing rotted boards on my wood shed and much to my surprise I found hand forged nails in some of the boards protected by the overhanging tin roof. no one knows for sure how old my house is or the rest of the buildings on the property. county records only go back to 1900. but it is rumored that my place is the oldest in the valley here and older folks have said parts of the house are at least as old as civil war. the woodshed might be the oldest structure on the property and the tobacco barn is made of all axe cut and axe shaped logs, no saw marks on any of the wood in there.
I'm guessing hand forged nails could push the date back to the 1830's or earlier. anyone know anything about this kind of stuff.

You can always send one off to the local university for testing the metal which possibly could date those nails for you?

[beemer]

I’ve come across lots of them over here. Lots of times they were driven completely through and bent over forming something like a rivet.

That was an acceptable practice called clinching. I've seen it many times especially on shed doors, it's hard to tear apart.

I've heard my Dad talk about people burning old run down houses for the nails, really hard times.

There is an old house place down the road that has a cabin on it. The last three owners have talked about restoring it but I think it's too much for one person to handle and do properly. It has been added to and worked on over the years. Several years ago someone from the historical society looked at it and said the construction looked about mid to late 1700's. Who knows, the history has been lost. The last person who lived there died in 1971. He was born there in 1879, it was his grandfathers home. I was young when I met him, wished many times I had had enough sense to set down and talk to him.

[Bmi48219]

A lot of the old timers would tear something down and salvage the nails out of it for future use. Was one of the boys chores to straighten the nails for use again. At one time nails were a precious commodity yours are some of those.

‘Old Timer’ is one of those relative terms. We straightened and salvaged nails right up to the late 60’s. In 1973 I contracted to remove the year old maple flooring from two handball courts. The floors were 20 or so feet below grade and had been flooded overnight when a sump pump failed. Each court was 800 square feet. I hauled the flooring to my dad’s house and he pulled all the flooring nails, sorted it for length and bundled it. Pulling those pneumatically installed flooring nails / brads was a total pain. We installed maple floors in the cottage we built on Lake Eire. Incidentally we dug the basement for that cottage by hand, laid the 12” block foundation walls using mortar made with beach sand I had screened and sifted.
Guys that grew up during the depression reused everything.

[farmbif]

I was just out there filling the shed with split wood and got looking at the boards I removed. it is a very heavy wood, kind of a medium brown almost reddish like the inside bark of sassafras tree. and I cant identify it, maybe it's chestnut? I dont know. I replaced the boards with red cedar and the old wood is probably 3x the weight of the local red cedar. got to thinking maybe send a sample off for age testing, yeah, but then looking into that a single carbon dating test costs are $300- $450. curiosity has got ahold of me wondering how old the structure is. after all this was Davey Crocketts stomping grounds way back when and there are log cabins not too far from here that are from his era.

[Winger Ed.]

It's hard to date something from the nails used to build it.
Nails used to be VERY expensive, and are one of the original things that got recycled.

[Gewehr-Guy]

I have made a few nails just to learn how. While in high school I worked {mostly just hung around and drank beer} with the town's blacksmith, and watched him make nails for a wooden trunk he was making for a fellow buckskinner. He used them to attach large ornate forged hinges he made for the trunk. Also watched him make tomahawks, of which he made over 1000, from the late 70's through the late 80's.

On our farm was an old shed from the early 1880's that was shingled with small square {cut} nails, have never seen those on any other old buildings, but the large cut nails for framing were common.

[Bazoo]

I am definitely interested in this as I love the history. You can still buy cut nails as masonry nails. I was born in the 80s, and as a kid, if I needed nails, I generally recycled them. I also have seen a lot of round nails that were bent over in barn construction. It makes a stronger structure for places that cows are rubbing against.

[GregLaROCHE]

As a kid, I straightened a lot of nails for my projects.

[HWooldridge]

I grew up in the 1960's - my grandfather was a Depression survivor. He gave me a magnet, a hammer, and a small anvil made from a railroad rail. My daily duty was to walk around his job sites with the magnet and pick up all the nails, then straighten them on the anvil. He would then toss them back in the nail bucket for the framers to load into their aprons the next morning.

He brought home a bunch of wooden crates once that held large windows for a bank job. We tore down everything and scavenged enough wood and nails to build roof trusses for a 20x20 pole barn. Like my dad used to say, one man's trash is another's treasure.

[Bmi48219]

I am definitely interested in this as I love the history. You can still buy cut nails as masonry nails…

I haven’t bought masonry nails in decades but the ones I saw (still have a box or two) were / are a lot harder / more brittle than wire cut nails.
I worked with some bricklayers from Kentucky. They used long horseshoe nails for line pins on firebrick jobs. Never cared for that idea myself. When the line is under 30-40 lbs of stretch a line pin that slips loose can be deadly.
In the late 70’s my buddy bought an old farm house in the middle of a Detroit suburb. IIRC it dated to the 1860’s. We found square head nails on every repair we did.

[JSnover]

I remember that my grandfather had an anvil that had a slot and hole he used to make horseshoe nails.
This process and the tooling were described in one of Louis L'amour's books. It was a common winter activity for homesteaders if I recall.

[15meter]

Clinching nails right is a two man job, one holding his hammer HARD against the head of the driven nail and the helper, usually the kid, on the other side bending it over. Wire nails were best, recycled square cut nails(not masonry nails) broke off too often.

And I've straightened and reused nails in the last 6 months. Old habits die hard and I was too lazy to walk back to the shed to get just a couple of nails.

[Bazoo]

I have straightened a few nails myself in the last few months. I thought everyone did that.

[gc45]

When buying our farm there was an old barn and small old house. The house was pretty much junk so I burned it only to find some old nails later that were rough looking and also square. The barn was much better so I re-roofed everything, replacing some boards also the doors and it still stands today on it's rock foundation, although I have re-roofed it twice now and just use it for firewood storage. No idea of when this place was first built maybe 1880's as I'm told settlers arrived about then but who knows?. I built a log house here in 1975 and still live there but for the taxes I would die here too but geez these Liberals are running many off these days.

[ShooterAZ]

Hand forged nails and modern cut nails are not the same, as has been previously mentioned. Modern cut nails are still being produced to this day and are seriously hardened, and they are commonly used to fasten wood products to concrete or masonry. I am a metal detectorist, and true hand forged nails are usually dated to pre-1900's era. Often times we search for an "iron patch" in known frontier spots around my location, and sometimes it results in locating a house that has burned down. The iron patches can be a bust or a boom, because there is usually a ton of other metal trash. We have found a lot of really good things though at some of these spots, so it pays to spend a lot more time searching the area.

[Ithaca Gunner]

Not all square or ''cut'' nails were hand forged, there were factories making them at least 30 years prior to the American Civil War. One such factory existed along the Conodoguinet Creek in what is now East Pennsboro Township, across the Susquehanna river from Harrisburg, PA. I believe the factory began in 1831 and produced cut nails into the early 20th century when it closed and was torn down in 1911.

I visited the site before it was cleaned up and preserved as a historical site, little remained other than some masonary arches and the aquaduct in the creek. One thing of interest was the nails in the creek, you could pull out nails by the handfull! I also found a Civil War Enfield bayonet in the mud along where the nails were, (Ft. Washington was on the heights on the opposite side of the creek to defend Harrisburg during Lee's invasion of PA in 1863).

Here's a link to the nail works.


https://eastpennhistory.org/2017/05/03/the-harrisburg-nail-works/

[MaryB]

When we tore down the barn at my grandparents old farm we ran into a ton of hand forged nails. Barn was built in the early 1800's as was part of the house that ended up being the kitchen. When we tore the house apart we were careful to tear it down to the kitchen area then proceeded by hand to uncover the original log cabin that was salvaged and moved to my parents lake lot and reassembled as a bunk house. My sister has pics of all that.

When we took the cabin apart I came across a $20 gold piece that grandpa told me to keep as good luck. He said it was placed there as an emergency stash when the cabin was built and they lost track of which log it was set into a slot that had chinking packed into it, we were picking out all the chinking when I found it. His grandpa had put it in the wall, told him about it when he was a young kid then everyone forgot about where it was. Just that there was an ounce of gold in one of the walls.

Doorway from the kitchen to the living room was 2' thick! Had a single piece of oak covering the log ends that was salvaged and turned into the bar top in my parents lake home 24" wide and 2" thick and 80" tall and hard as a rock! Removed 10 layers of paint to expose this gorgeous piece of oak slab that was hand sanded then sealed with 6 layers of epoxy to give it that deep finish... when thelake house sold my older sister got the bar for her basement.

[Teddy (punchie)]

Working away from the house or barn at the farm it's a long walk 3/8's of mile from down over the hill. We save the nails for reuse and also no to lay on the ground for the animals to eat. We save all the metal and trash it after we are done. Plus cut nails or masonry nails are one thing Double headed nail for porcelain insulators are also rough to find.

[crandall crank]

From the legends that I have heard. If a pioneer family was moving West, they would build a small cabin or shed for protection from the elements. After a season or two, they would burn the structure and salvage the hardware, such as; nails, screws, hinges, etc. The would proceed West and repeat the process until they came to an area they found desirable.

[Bazoo]

This is a really interesting discussion. Thanks all for sharing your stories. Mary, I'd like to see pictures of that old cabin. And of the $20 gold piece, that's a real neat story. So it was your grandpa's grandpa. Man that must have been a heck of an investment back at that time.

[barnetmill]

I have never seen it, but have been told of really old homes that were put together with wooden pegs. Now days some use live oak for wooden pegs, but in the past black locust was favored.


A treenail, also trenail, trennel, or trunnel, is a wooden peg, pin, or dowel used to fasten pieces of wood together, especially in timber frames, covered bridges, wooden shipbuilding and boat building.[1] It is driven into a hole bored through two (or more) pieces of structural wood (mortise and tenon).
The use of wood as a tenon can be traced back over 7,000 years, as archaeologist have found traces of wood nails in the excavation of early Germanic sites.[2] Trenails are extremely economical and readily available, making them a common early building material.[3] Black Locust is a favorite wood when making trunnels in shipbuilding in North America[4][5] and English Oak in Europe[6][7] due to their strength and rot resistance, while red oak is typical in buildings. Traditionally treenails and pegs were made by splitting bolts of wood with a froe and shaping them with a drawknife on a shaving horse.

[Bazoo]

I've heard of pegged construction in timber framing, but not in any other methods. I know that a dry square or octagonal peg, in a round hole in slightly green wood, will make a very tight joint as the wood drys.

[barnetmill]

I've heard of pegged construction in timber framing, but not in any other methods. I know that a dry square or octagonal peg, in a round hole in slightly green wood, will make a very tight joint as the wood drys.
A peg usually needs to go in predrilled hole is my understanding and so steel nails are just so much faster.

[Bazoo]

A peg usually needs to go in predrilled hole is my understanding and so steel nails are just so much faster. You're quite astute.

[MaryB]

This is a really interesting discussion. Thanks all for sharing your stories. Mary, I'd like to see pictures of that old cabin. And of the $20 gold piece, that's a real neat story. So it was your grandpa's grandpa. Man that must have been a heck of an investment back at that time.

I don't have any pics of the cabin... mom sold the lake house when dad died, way more upkeep than she could handle... Just your typical 16'x16' single room log cabin... gold piece is in my safe deposit box... small local bank so not worried about the bank stealing it.

The farm was started as the first dairy farm in a 3 county area, when dad's side of the family came here from Germany they stopped in Chicago for 10 years and opened a butcher shop. Made a bunch of money then moved west. 10 head of dairy cattle in tow. They always had steers every year to sell off so a $20 gold piece was a lot of money but not a massive amount for them.

Cousins emigrated 10 years after they broke virgin prairie and they got the land across the road from them. They started a hog farm... being cousins they did a lot of back and forth trading etc. Those cousins now own what was my grandparents farm and raise 1,000 hogs a year! I stop and visit them now and then, it is about 45 miles from me.

I have lived my entire life in a 60 mile radius of where I was born!

[country gent]

I have helped repair the old barns constructed with doweled mortise and tenons. When the joints set and dry they are very tight. We had several drill with the side webs sharpened for removing them. Otherwise drilling out the old pin to repair you would get partway thru the pin collapses and pinches the drill locking it up.

I built workbenches and other things using doweled mortise and tenon joints. When done right they are stronger and sturdier than nails or screw joints and dont loosen up as easy. The holes werent just drilled thru. the holes were Drilled so when the dowel was driven in it pulled the joint tight in to the tenons shoulders locking it up.

[Bigslug]

From the legends that I have heard. If a pioneer family was moving West, they would build a small cabin or shed for protection from the elements. After a season or two, they would burn the structure and salvage the hardware, such as; nails, screws, hinges, etc. The would proceed West and repeat the process until they came to an area they found desirable.

I've heard something along those lines too - like they'd torch the original homestead to extract the nails before heading West.

Makes me wonder though: what was the expectation for hardness/heat treating for the useable product and what would a house fire do to that?

[HWooldridge]

I've heard something along those lines too - like they'd torch the original homestead to extract the nails before heading West.

Makes me wonder though: what was the expectation for hardness/heat treating for the useable product and what would a house fire do to that?

Wrought iron doesn’t gain or lose anything in a house fire - so it wouldn’t have made any difference.

[beemer]

I knew a guy that tore down old cabins and barns to sell the logs. He usually removed the roofing and strips and pulled the rafters off with his 4wd pickup. He found one with pegged roof framing but never gave it a thought. He wrapped a cable around the gable end and his hitch ball, left his bumper in the driveway.

[Paper Puncher]

One of the duties of an apprentice blacksmith was making nails. I can remember talking to an old German blacksmith who apprenticed around 1900. He said one of the first things you learn to make was a nail. I can't remember if he said they still sold them or if it was just tradition by that time.

[10x]

My grandfather was a master blacksmith. He would make nails in his spare time in the winter.
We had tobacco cans full of hand forged nails on the shelves in his shop in the 1950s.
After dad sold the horses he farmed with, I had two tobacco cans full of hand forged horse shoe nails. I spent many afternoons with a hammer driving these nails into the wooden workbench when i was 4 or 5 years old. One of the few foolish things I regret doing as a child.

[waksupi]

I worked on a restoration project of an old Hudson's Bay trading post. Lots of old forged nails. Some were being discarded, so I saved a bunch, and put them on Ebay, telling where they came from. I was amazed at how much some paid for Hudson's Bay memorabilia.