Using Nails: The Basics

The following is excerpted from “Smalls: 18 Well-designed, Easy Projects for an Afternoon in the Workshop.” In addition to the projects, you’ll find chapters on the techniques you need to build them (which will, of course, come in handy for all sorts of projects – not just the 18 in this pocket book). We used four types of nails in these projects: cut nails, square-shanked die-forged nails and nail-gun nails, both 18-gauge and 23-gauge. The 18-gauge brads from a nail gun have rectangular heads, so the holes they make look a lot like traditional nail holes from cut nails – and they’re faster than cut nails or square-shanked nails, because no pilot holes are required. The 23-gauge pins leave just a tiny hole, and they don’t have much holding power – but for thin work that doesn’t have to hold much weight, they’re plenty strong. Cut nails (made by Tremont, the only remaining maker of which we’re aware) come in a variety of types. We mostly used headless brads when we didn’t want the nail…