March 15, 201313 yr 125 Hammer Blows per nail on average with 1 nail (with reheat time) about ever 1:00-1:30 so three dozen nails in around 35 minutes = 4500 hammer strikes, close to 9000 swings per hour, or 72,000 swings in a work day.
March 15, 201313 yr Author Incredeble! What propted you to make so many nails?They're great practice and warm up work, been spending more time working to sell my house than smiting lately and they help get my arm back. Also I use them in projects and sell them at events but even after a few hundred of them they are still getting better as I practice. You can never have too many nails! Made two sizes but the overall uniformity could be better
March 15, 201313 yr Greetings Wesley, You hit the nail on the head .. so to speak.... You ever try a 5 clout head configuration... Hammer on and good luck selling your house.. Jim
March 15, 201313 yr OOoohhh! I LOVE nails! Nice nails dude! I see a lot of crappy nails made as demos... but yours are NICE! As a woodworker/carpenter/artist I am amazed at the fine performance of my handmade nails! They're not your hardware store nails at all! Vastly stronger grabs and awesome looking as well! Yours have nice long thin tapers and good sized handsome heads... what I like about my own nails!
March 15, 201313 yr One suggestion is that I learned from an old video to just nick my stock on one side and then cut mostly through from the opposite side. Then you can bend the nail at right angles to the hinge cut making it safer to heat for the heading as you can keep the thin part of the nail away from the hotter areas of the fire! This is especially helpful when I am making nails with larger than normal heads, which I do sometimes for decorative purposes.
March 15, 201313 yr Author Thanks for the luck Jim, Never tried the five, mostly just threes and fours. BF Thanks for that tip, I can see how that would be handy. I hated bent shanks with my first few nail-header so the next few I made I hot fit the bottom end into the pritchel first so I can "set" the tool while I work and keep things from tweaking.
March 16, 201313 yr I really like the look of your header! The long handle looks deluxe also! I also find that I am still getting more refinement in my nail making techniques as I make more and more of them.
March 16, 201313 yr Author I think for that one I started with 3/4 round, upset one end to give me some mass. Got a real nice heat of the upset section then hot fit it to my pritchel almost like crafting a hardy tool. From the top I used my E-head nail punch from my shoeing tools to give me the proper square shape with a slight taper, this was only about 3/16-1/4 deep. From the under side I picked a slightly larger diameter bit than the desired nail shank and drilled till I hit the bottom of my punched section. This way I get a snug square grip under the head but the rest of the shank is free to drop in and not catch the sides when worked why in my videos the nails drop loose with only a slight tap if at all. Hope that makes sense lol image shape is a bit exaggerated
March 16, 201313 yr Even though I'm sure y'all know, a little trick to cut some time: have two or three pieces of stock heating, and that way you don't have as much down time in between heats. Work through the line left to right or right to left, so you know what has been used, and to avoid burning your metal.
March 16, 201313 yr Author Using two heats per nail like I do lets the single piece of stock reheat while I head after I cut. I've tried more than one piece but my fire is way to hot to keep more than one piece of 1/4" near the action :P
March 17, 201313 yr Good vid Wesley. there is absolutely nothing like making a run of 20 or a hundred to teach you skills.
March 18, 201313 yr Thank you for the diagram of your header, it looks to be a better design than most I've seen, and will have to try it out and see!
March 19, 201313 yr I think for that one I started with 3/4 round, upset one end to give me some mass. Got a real nice heat of the upset section then hot fit it to my pritchel almost like crafting a hardy tool. From the top I used my E-head nail punch from my shoeing tools to give me the proper square shape with a slight taper, this was only about 3/16-1/4 deep. From the under side I picked a slightly larger diameter bit than the desired nail shank and drilled till I hit the bottom of my punched section. This way I get a snug square grip under the head but the rest of the shank is free to drop in and not catch the sides when worked why in my videos the nails drop loose with only a slight tap if at all. Hope that makes sense lol header .jpg image shape is a bit exaggerated Great looking tool mate! Really like that idea. Andy
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