Nails
A nail is a metal object with a flat head and a long, sharp tip. A hammer or nail gun is used to put it into another object. It is often used to join two objects together.
The history of the nail came in three periods:
- Hand-wrought (forged) nail (pre-history until 19th century)
- Cut nail (roughly 1800 to 1914)
- Wire nail (roughly 1860 to the present)
Nails date back at least to Ancient Egypt – bronze nails found in Egypt have been dated 3400 BC. The Bible has references to nails. King David gave iron to make nails for what would become Solomon’s Temple.
The Romans made extensive use of nails. The Roman army left behind seven tons of nails when it evacuated the fortress of Inchtuthil in Perthshire, Scotland, in 86 or 87 AD.
Written for younger readers
Nails, in simpler words
This version comes from Wikijunior, a set of books written for children aged 8 to 11. It is shorter and uses plainer language than the article above.
From Wikijunior: How Things Are Made
Cluster-2.jpg|A cluster of nails Nails consists of a metal rod or shank, pointed at one end and usually having a formed head at the other side. It can be hammered into pieces of wood or other materials to fasten them together.
Most nails are made of steel. Aluminum, copper, brass, bronze, stainless steel, nickel, silver, monel, zinc, and iron are also used.
- Step 1: Wire is drawn from a coil and fed into the nail-making machine where it is gripped by a pair of gripper dies. The shape of the head of the nail has been machined into the end of the dies.
- Step 2: While the dies clamp the wire in place,the free end of the wire is struck by a mechanical hammer. This deforms the end of the wire into the die cavity to form the head of the nail.
- Step 3: With the wire still clamped in the dies, a set of shaped cutters strike the opposite end of the nail, forming the point and cutting the nail free from the rest of the wire coming off the coil.
- Step 4: The dies open and an expelling mechanism knocks the nail into a collection pan below the machine. The free end of the wire is drawn from the coil and fed into the machine. The cycle then begins again.
- Step 5: The nails are cleaned in a rotating barrel filled with hot caustic soda. This removes any oil from the forming machine and cleans up any small metal scraps, or nipping, that might be clinging to the nails.
Pembuatan paku di mesin.png | Step 1: The wire are feed into the machine Pembuatan paku secara dekat.png | Step 2&3: The wire head is deformed to form the head of nails and the end are cut off forming sharp point
Where this page comes from
The article above is adapted from “Nails” on Simple English Wikipedia, by its contributors. We removed reference markers, navigation boxes and tables, expanded measurement templates into readable numbers, and kept the prose otherwise intact. The simpler version is adapted from Wikijunior on Wikibooks.
Both sources are published under CC BY-SA 4.0, so this page is published under the same licence. You may share and adapt it, including commercially, as long as you credit the original and keep the same licence.
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