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Why You Should Use Nails, Not Screws. Also, Why is This Nail Factory Covered in Vegetable Oil?
The answer will shock you! (Okay, fine, it won't shock you. But it is rather interesting)
When it comes to using metal fasteners in natural wood, you can either use nails or screws. The problem with screws is that they're too strong; as the wood swells or shrinks with changes in humidity, with one piece attempting to move across the surface of another, the wood can crack.
Nails have better flexibility and can bend as the wood moves. Problem solved, right? Not always: Modern-day nails, which are made from cut wire and have chisel points, can split the wood as you drive them in.
Image via Wonkee Donkee Tools One solution is to blunt the tips of your nails. This way the nail is essentially wedging itself between the fibers of the wood, rather than cutting the fibers and introducing a split.
Image via Rich Watts However, the perfectly cylindrical shape of a wire nail doesn't provide great purchase. But traditional wedge-shaped nails, which are forged or cut, will hold virtually forever.
Enter a caption (optional)That's why forged or cut nails have recently become all the rage among woodworkers. They're functional, traditional and have a quaint aesthetic.
Enter a caption (optional)Recently there's been a bit of excitement in the community as Maine-based Lie-Nielsen Toolworks has announced they're going to start carrying forged nails from Rivierre, a French company that has been manufacturing nails since 1888—and still operates out of their original 19th-Century factory!
©-Thierry-Ewangelista As Lost Art Press reports, company director Luc Kemp "is running the factory as it was in 1888 as much as possible." Check out their antique-but-functional production machinery, some of which have names:
©-Thierry-Ewangelista 
©-Clouterie-Rivierre 
©-Thierry-Ewangelista 
We're guessing this is row "H." ©-Thierry-Ewangelista The factory was recently visited by Lie-Nielsen instructor Deneb Puchalski, who reported something I found rather interesting:
"It was incredible to walk through the building. All the machines are where they were in the 1890s and everything is completely covered in (vegetable) oil," Deneb says.
Why vegetable oil? Because Rivierre—which is France's last nail manufacturer, by the way—got their start by making nails for cobblers and upholsterers before expanding into nails for carpentry. Turns out the chosen work habits of their original target market have influenced how the company lubricates their machines:
Deneb says Rivierre uses [vegetable oil] because their upholstery and cobbler customers hold the nails in the mouth while working. So it's for safety.
I get the feeling that vaping American Millennial cobblers would prefer the machines were lubricated with strawberry-, butterscotch- or cotton-candy-flavored oils.
Via Lost Art Press
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Comments
This is a rather biased take on screws va. nails. Predrilling of screws in a proper diameter most often is the only way to effectively use non-wood joinery especially in significantly hardwoods (over a specific gravity of .50 or higher). Cut nails are cool but cmon. I don't supposed you also have some magic beans to sell me
I've used forged nails on a few occasions, they work much better than both screws and wire cut nails. The trick is to place the forged nail with the widest part perpendicular to the grain of the wood. This allows the wedge shape to shear through the fiber which deflects the fiber down meaning the nail is held in place by the compressive force of the wood fiber itself. Lee Valley had an online article explaining get the properties of forged nails and why they were superior to screws and wire cut nails.
Also heard that in some building codes, nails are required vs screws because screws can shear off whereas wire nails will not. (ie. earthquake building codes)
If the chisel points of modern nails can split wood, why wouldn't the chisel shape of the entire forged nail not do the same?
Two things. One, I neglected to mention that forged nails typically require a pilot hole (produced with a brace-and-bit in the days antedating power drills). Two is to do with scale. The chisel point on a wire nail is small, small enough to tear the fibers. The blunt end of a forged nail mashes rather than lacerates, and as the large wedge is driven further down into a pilot hole, the fibers are compressed to the sides rather than having a laceration introduced into them that can spread and turn into a split.
Why not use a magnet strapped to one's wrist to hold the nails? Magnets weren't that expensive, even back then. They don't have to be neodymium or rare earth magnets; any old magnet will do.
Awesome. Thinking of trying my hand at using these forged nails down the line. Love that this factory held out after all these years!