Making square nails

[smallpatch]

OK,

I've finally run into something that #1, I have no idea about, and #2 just don't seem to have the natural ability to figure out.

I'm building a Type G trade gun, (thank you Mr Brooks), and I just can't quite figure the trick to making the square nails to fasten the buttplate, and thumb inlay.

Mike sent some round stock, and I've tried, heating and pounding, but all I seem to be able to do is pound a couple of flats on them. (propane torch, and a pair of pliers)  By the  time I hit it once or twice, it's cooled off.
 Can't seem to be able to get them to taper.

The next problem.... how to make the heads.

Any help out there??

[Mike Brooks]

If all else fails, just file them square and taper them, both ways works.

[smallpatch]

Mike,

Thanks.... why didn't I think of that??

[Canute Rex]

Hi Smallpatch,

What you need is a nail header. It is a very simple tool, but you will need more heat than a propane torch to make it. For the few nails you need you could make it from mild steel - the standard stuff you get at the steel yard or hardware store. Mmmm, perhaps you could drill and file it with a fine square file. Anyway, it is just a bar of steel with a square, tapered hole in one end, the small end of the taper being the size of your nail just below the head. You could drill a hole and file it to a tapered square shape, but the usual method for blacksmiths is to make a tapered punch, heat the bar, and punch it through. You use it with the small end of the hole up.

To forge the nails, heat the rod, put it on the "anvil" (or actual anvil, if you have one) with the hot tip on the surface and the rod angled just slightly up towards your hand. Angle your hammer a little higher and strike it on the tip. Rotate the rod on its axis quickly 90 degrees and strike it again. Rotate it back 90, strike again. Keep doing this and a (roughly) symmetrical taper will form. When you have the length and point correct, measure about two diameters from where the taper stops and cut the nail almost off. This leaves you a handle. Heat the thick end of the nail to a yellow, stick it in the small side of the header, and twist. You should end up with a hot nail in the header. Put the header on the edge of your anvil (or over the hole in the heel) with the point of the nail hanging down and pound straight down on the hot nail. It will flatten out into a head. It will want to pull to one side, so slewing the header around so your hammer blows land from all direction will counteract this. Then, as it cools to a dull red, make four dragging, outward angled blows on the head in the four compass directions. This will give you a rose headed nail. Tap the nail point on the anvil and it should pop out. Repeat till bored.

It takes practice. Take it from a former pro blacksmith - the moment you get good at it then it is dead boring. It will help to have something better than a propane torch. At least a rosebud tip on an acetylene torch. Even a fire of real wood charcoal with a good draft will do. In the old days farmers would sit in front of the fire in the winter with some nail rod and a little post anvil and make nails for sale.

Hope that helps.

Canute

[Joe S]

Square nails are easy to file or forge from concrete nails.

[Mad Monk]

Thirty five years ago I did extensive remodeling of this house which was built in 1860.  Could kick myself for not having saved all of those nice wrought iron nails that came out of different places.  Charcoal wrought iron. 

Every now and then I get some very small ones out of plaster over lath walls.  They looked nice in powder horns.

E. Ogre

[J Shingler]

Smallpatch drop me an e-mail with your address.
I Have a double lifetime supply of the square ones Curly used to send with his kits. Be happy to mail you out a few.
All I would have to do is FIND them.
Jeff

[J.D.]

IMHO, a nail header isn't really necessary, though it does produce a more uniform head. Placing the nail in a small vise to form the head, turning the nail 90 degrees, to form a somewhat uniform shoulder, can produce a decent head.

It doesn't hurt to file the underside of the head flat and square, once the nail is cooled.

IMHO, heat isn't really required. Cold forging should do the trick. Practice on coat hanger wire, or make 'em out of coat hanger wire.

Cold forge small nails square, one on each end of the rod, then cut and head.

Just remembered, you don't know how to forge. Raise the rod at a slight angle to the anvil on your vise. Lay only the part of the rod on the anvil that you want to taper. Hammer on the end, and work up the bar, as far as you need, using a small hammer.

Leave the point of the nails kinda blunt. Sharp points bend when hammering into the wood. Nails with bent points won't drive worth a hoot.

Just kinda thinkn'...typn' out loud, so to speak...type.

[Mike Brooks]

Just a little extra information here..... Nails for trade guns don't need heads on them, the old ones didn't. The taper is what holds the brass down..... that's why they are tapered, otherwise you might just as well use a straight sided nail with a point on one end and a head on the other.
 I use an under size hole in the brass with NO countersink to start with and drive the square tapered nail in till it won't go anymore due to the fact that the taper gets bigger on the big end....I'm sure that made sense didn't it..... You just file off the extra nail sticking out and you're left with a smooth surface with a visibly square nail showing in the brass.
 Be careful on the back side of the butt that you don't split the wood, I angle my nails in toward the center a bit.

[JCKelly]

www.vandykes.com  has 1" and 1-1/8" square 3/32" shanked, tapered, pyramid headed steel nails about $2/package of 25. Cut the heads off for that tapered nail you need for NW gun.

[Dphariss]

Get some sheet steel of the proper thickness and shear nails from it. Then straighten.
"Cut nails".
PS Shear so one end is a point and you have a tapered nail that needs no head in a trade gun buttplate.
Dan

[smallpatch]

OK guys,

The panic is over, I started up my propane torch, pounded steel for about and hour and a half, and made 10 pretty decent nails 3/4" long.  (approx).

Spent most of the time waiting for the metal to heat up.  Something with a little more heat would be nice.

I think they might even work.

[David Veith]

Why don't you try some mep gas. If you find a 1/2 doz fire brick you can make a nice little forge. with ether gas. do a little goggling it might have been on the old foram.
David Veith

[frogwalking]

In my tool box at the farm, I have a bunch of square nails, about an inch or so long I pulled out of an old house I was working on.  If you still need them, email me and send your address and I will send you some.

Frog

[George F.]

Mr. Monk, I also remember remodeling old homes the square lath nails, junk to me, then, but now after reading these posts, wished I had saved a few. When my father passed away back in '85, he had accumulated a life time of parts from just about anything, all stored on the rear wall of the garage in coffee cans, 1&2 lb cans, remember them? Most of the stuff I kept, He had hundreds of steel, unplated wood screws, some unfortunately with the slots chewed up.  It's hard to believe that people stripped off and salvaged what ever they could back then. I guess growing up in the thirty's trained everybody pretty good.  ... Geo.