Nails, Screws, Bolts, and Other Fasteners - Carpenter's and Builder's Math, Plans, and Specifications - page 1

Chapter 1
Nails, Screws, Bolts,
and Other Fasteners
The strength and stability of any structure depend heavily on the fas-
tenings that hold its parts together. One prime advantage of wood as
a structural material is the ease with which wood structural parts can
be joined together with a wide variety of fastenings—nails, spikes,
screws, bolts, lag screws, drift pins, staples, and metal connectors of
various types. For utmost rigidity, strength, and service, each type
of fastening requires joint designs adapted to the strength properties
of wood along and across the grain and to dimensional changes that
may occur with changes in moisture content.
Nails
Nails are the most common fasteners used in construction.
Up to the end of the Colonial period, all nails used in the United
States were handmade. They were forged on an anvil from nail rods,
which were sold in bundles. These nail rods were prepared either by
rolling iron into small bars of the required thickness or by the much
more common practice of cutting plate iron into strips by means of
rolling shears.
Just before the Revolutionary War, the making of nails from
these rods was a household industry among New England farm-
ers. The struggle of the Colonies for independence intensified an
inventive search for shortcuts to mass production of material en-
tering directly or indirectly into the prosecution of the war. Thus
came about the innovation of cut nails made by machinery. With its
coming, the household industry of nail making rapidly declined. At
the close of the eighteenth century, 23 patents for nailmaking ma-
chines had been granted in the United States, and their use had been
generally introduced into England, where they were received with
enthusiasm.
In France, lightweight nails for carpenter's use were made of wire
as early as the days of Napoleon I, but these nails were made by
hand with a hammer. The handmade nail was pinched in a vise with
a portion projecting. A few blows of a hammer flattened one end into
a head. The head was beaten into a countersunk depression in the
vise, thus regulating its size and shape. In the United States, wire nails
were first made in 1851 or 1852 by William Hersel of New York.
In 1875, Father Goebel, a Catholic priest, arrived from Germany
and settled in Covington, Kentucky. There he began the manufacture
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