From my collection: I rescued these roofing nails from an old shed that had fallen down. I know it was just one of many jobs blacksmiths had coming in back in the day but imagine getting an order for a thousand or so of these? What a mind numbing job. They are iron and coated with lead, zinc(?) Several still show signs of a leather washer or sealing compound to make them watertight. Pretty impressive; being able to create heads this large and draw out the points.

Mind numbing is why the job would be given to the apprentice. 

Not necessarily. Nailmaking could be a task for apprentices, a full-time profession, or something that farmer smiths would do during the evenings or winter months to sell for cash. Both George Washington at Mount Vernon and Thomas Jefferson at Monticello had enslaved smiths making nails full-time to augment the income from their plantations' agricultural produce.

 

Many years ago I took and filled an order for 500 hand forged nails.  I was REALLY tired of making nails by the end and I still only make them when I have to as part of another project.

If you had orders that size you'd probably buy or make a nail station. I made one using a RR spike with a long point drawn on the pointy end so I could drive it into a log, hard soil, etc. to use around a camp fire. I forge welded a horizontal piece of 3/4" x 3/16" strip stock to act as a stop for the spike and a cut off on one side and a small fuller on the other. I drew the thinner section of the RR spike head down and punched it for the header. I screwed that up by not doming the header first so it made flat nail heads. The spike head was anvil and header, the spike stop was hardy and fuller. 

I used 5/16" rnd. hot rolled cut in 18" working lengths and gave up on using tongs.

It was fun sitting by the campfire with my little nail station driven into whatever between my legs near my knees and whacking out little nails. While fun it was only good for one size shank and needed a longer anchor spike. Worse my weld broke and seeing as I'd only made it just because I didn't replace it. 

In practice the anvil side of the nail maker was towards me, the header away. The cutoff was towards me, the header away. In use I held the stock across me, drew the point, scored the stock for the head placed the point in the header. Bent the nail til it broke and headed the nail. tapped the "finished" nail out while replacing the stock in the fire and taking the next one. 

I never got good enough to make "one heat" nails and reheating after drawing the point burned them off instead. I found if I scored the stock before drawing the point I could reheat it before drawing the point and head it. 

A quick search for "hand forging nails" brings up lots of hits for videos on Youtube. Some really basic, some pretty fancy. 

If Colonial Williamsburg still has a website they may show nail making stations. I sort of designed the spike roughly based on one I saw there. 

Frosty The Lucky.

I'm a one-man operation. That makes me the master smith/apprentice/helper/lugger of all things heavy.

Miracle Machine Works, L. Jones - Prop.    Our motto~ "If It's a Good Part, It's a Miracle."

There's a nail station in the video in JHCC's May 30 post here:  https://www.iforgeiron.com/topic/78536-how-do-you-draw-tapers/#comment-824617