let me test the pelican braintrust.

[vash]

what is up with the nail "unit"? i mean a plain old sixteen penny nail. where did the term "penny" come from? if i had to guess, is it how much a lb. of nails that size cost back in the day? no, that doesnt make sense. zeke?

[TerryBPP]

I'll guess the 16 pennies is how much the nail weighs. Atleast when the term was phrased.

[84porsche]

Found this out there in internet land.

Origin of "Penny-wise" Nail Designations

There are two explanations for the English "penny" system of designating nails. One is that the eight-penny, six-penny, two-penny nails, etc. were so called originally because one hundred nails cost eightpence, sixpence, two pence, etc. The other theory says that one thousand eight-penny nails, for example, weighed eight pounds, one thousand four penny nails weighed four pounds, etc.

The "d" abbreviation for penny, (8d for example,) is of ancient origin and represents the first letter of the Roman coin denarius.

Nails used with wood, (such as wood siding nails, cedar shingle nails, etc.), are traditionally referred to by the "penny" designation, i.e., as 5d or 6d nails, etc.. However, nails for non-wood applications, (fiber-cement siding nails, metal roofing nails, etc.) are primarily referred to by inches, i.e. as s1 1/2", or 2" nails, etc. In our literature, the penny designation is listed first for those nails that are usually referred to by that term.

There is no readily apparent system for correlating the various penny designations. They must be memorized individually

Actually, for the siding industry, we do make odd size nails. 3d = 1 1/4", 5d = 1 3/4", 7d = 2 1/4", 9d = 2 3/4".

The odd size penny designaitions seem to fall on the 1/4" and most applications call for nails at the 1/2" increments. 6d(2"), 8d(2 1/2"), 10d (3'), 16d(3 1/2"). But get this -- ther are no 11d, 13d or 14d... weird.


Anyway, I hope you can use this info, and let me know if I can elp you further.

Paul @ Maze Nail (http://coe.fgcu.edu/bengel/Nails.htm)

[Burnin' oil]

"Brain trust." Now THAT'S funny . . .

[singpilot]

But ya know what?

The 'brains' on this site ALWAYS come thru.....

[Zeke]

Cliff, nice of you to thing of me in the form of a Pelican "brain trust." However, having driving hundreds of pounds (however you want to interpt that ), I never gave much thought to the nomeclature.

Originally, in the US anyway, nails were square cut, and held well. I have a small collection of some from various old house I've worked on. These nails were made by a much cruder process than the wire formed nails of today. I also have 5 or 6 old "kegs" of nails that actauly were sold in a small wooden keg. They have to be 100lbs. ea., they are really heavy. So, you will also sometimes hear the term keg; not as much as box. The old carpenters would mix parafin and gasoline and pour the mixture over the open keg to facillitate the driving of the nails. Today, they are coated with a variety of coating matching the intended use.

There are box nails, common nails (thicker shaft), finish nails, and as mention above, lots of specialty nails available. Hot dipped and cold dipped galvanized are smore choices.

Nowadays, nail guns are the order of the day and everone uses them. It's hard to find someone that can hammer/drive a nail well without hitting the wood and it's even harder to find a sharp edge hammer for toe nailing where you have to hit the head of the nail with the very edge of the hammer to drive it flush w/o tearing up the surrounding wood. Pride of craftsmanship is long gone.

I'd say nails are the single most dangerest thing in a workshop or construction site if you consider all of the related injuries.

I con't come to OT much anymore, but it was a fun question. I learnd something.

[dhoward]

No, because of the nail-gunners...

[RickM]

Stepping on nail, ricochet into eye, missing head with hammer and hitting finger

[dhoward]

Originally posted by RickM
Snipped........ missing head with hammer and hitting finger

Weird visual that made me laugh loudly enough to attract attention....

[Zeke]

"most dangerest" Did I say that? I guess so. Man, I don't do that too often.

Yes, Rick has the idea.

[white87911]

Not to highjack the thread as I believe the "penny" nail idea has been explained.

But... who know what the "gauge" of a shotgun means?

I know!

[tabs]

Bore size

[Joeaksa]

Originally posted by Zeke
Originally, in the US anyway, nails were square cut, and held well. I have a small collection of some from various old house I've worked on. These nails were made by a much cruder process than the wire formed nails of today. I also have 5 or 6 old "kegs" of nails that actauly were sold in a small wooden keg.

Zeke, I collect old "date nails" that are somewhat like yours. These were put into the end of railroad ties to show how old the tie is, and when they needed to be replaced. On the head of the nail is a two digit number showing what year the tie was put in place. Have some in my collection that are almost 100 years old.

Guess the reason I keep them is that some of them were collected years ago with my Father and its a memory of the time we spent together.

Love old tools and hardware. Things are just not made the same way these days. My Great Great Grandfather hand made a brace and bit out of iron. Still have it somewhere around the house. It could survive a atomic blast I bet, unlike some of the new plastic crap...

Joe A

[RoninLB]

Does the expression, "We've always done it that way!" ring any bells?

The US standard railroad gauge (distance between the
rails) is 4 feet, 8.5 inches. That is an exceedingly odd number. Why was that gauge used? Because that is the way they built them in England, and English expatriates built the US railroads. Why did the English build them like that?

Because the first rail lines were built by the same
people who built the pre-railroad tramways, and that is the gauge they used. Why did "they" use that gauge then? Because the people who built the tramways used the same jigs and tools that they used for building wagons, which used the same wheel spacing.

Okay!
Why did the wagons have that particular odd wheel
spacing? Well, if they tried to use any other spacing, the wagon wheels would break on some of the old, long distance roads in England, because that's the spacing of the wheel ruts. So who built those old rutted roads?
Imperial Rome built the first long distance roads in Europe (and England) for their legions. The roads have been used ever since.

And the ruts in the roads?
Roman war chariots formed the initial ruts, which
everyone else had to match for fear of destroying their wagon wheels. Since the chariots were made for (or by) Imperial Rome, they all had the same wheel spacing.
Therefore, the United States standard railroad gauge
of 4 feet, 8.5 inches is derived from the original specification for an
Imperial Roman war chariot.

Specifications and bureaucracies live forever. So the
next time you are handed a specification and wonder what horse's ass came up with it, you may be exactly right. This is because the Imperial Roman war chariots were made just wide enough to accommodate the back ends of two war-horses.

Now, the twist to the story...
There is an interesting extension to the story about
railroad gauges and horses' behinds. When we see a Space Shuttle sitting on its launch pad, there are two big booster rockets attached to the sides of the main tank. These are solid rocket boosters, or SRBs.

Thiokol makes the SRBs at their factory at Utah. The
engineers who designed the SRBs might have preferred to make them a bit fatter, but the SRBs had to be shipped by train from the factory to the launch site. The railroad line from the factory happens to run through a tunnel in the mountains. The SRBs had to fit through that tunnel. The tunnel is slightly wider than the railroad track, and the railroad track is about as wide as two horses' behinds.

So, a major design feature of what is arguably the
world's most advanced transportation system was determined over two thousand years ago by the width of a horse's ass.

Howard Winsett
NASA Dryden Flight Research Center

[white87911]

Originally posted by tabs
Bore size

No kidding, but how does the number relate to the actual size?

[oldE]

I could certainly stand to be corrected, but I always thought it referred to the bore diameter in fractions of a foot. 12 gauge- approx. 1 inch in diameter, 1/12 ft. 20 gauge = 1/20 th ft. Can someone correct me on this?
Les

[white87911]

Originally posted by oldE
I could certainly stand to be corrected, but I always thought it referred to the bore diameter in fractions of a foot. 12 gauge- approx. 1 inch in diameter, 1/12 ft. 20 gauge = 1/20 th ft. Can someone correct me on this?
Les

Nope that is incorrect.

Here us a full explanation:

Shotgun gauges are determined by the number of lead balls of a given diameter required to make one pound of that size ball. Thus 10 balls of 10 gauge diameter are required to make one pound of such balls, or 20 balls of 20 gauge diameter are required to make one pound, and so forth. This is the traditional, and very old, system. The actual (nominal) bore diameters of the various gauges are as follows: 10 gauge = .775 inch, 12 gauge = .729 inch, 16 gauge = .662 inch, 20 gauge = .615 inch, 28 gauge = .550 inch. The .410 is named for its nominal bore size, and is not a gauge at all.

[id10t]

Gauge for shotguns is based on the numbe of pure lead balls of bore diameter it would take to weigh one pound.

[white87911]

Originally posted by id10t
Gauge for shotguns is based on the numbe of pure lead balls of bore diameter it would take to weigh one pound.

Did you not read the answer that was posted 10 minutes before this post?

You are correct anyway :-)

[M.D. Holloway]

"I see" said the blind man as he picked up the saw and proceeded to cut off his finger.

"Balls!" he said, not because he wanted two... but because he had too.