Editing Nail (fastener) (section)

===Hand wrought===
[[File:Forging a nail. Valašské muzeum v přírodě.webm|thumb|Hand-forging a nail, including use of a nail-header]]
[[File:Boat nail production.ogv|thumb|Partly mechanised boat nail production in [[Hainan]], China]]

In hand-working of nails, a smith works an approximately conical iron pin tapering to a point. This is then inserted into a nail-header (also known as a nail-plate), essentially a plate of iron with a small hole in it. The broad end of the pin is slightly wider than the hole of the nail-header: the smith fits the pin into the hole of the nail-header and then hammers the broad end of the pin. Unable to advance through the hole, the broad end is flattened against the nail-header to create a nail-head. In at least some metalworking traditions, nail-headers might have been identical to [[Draw plate|draw-plates]] (a plate bored with tapering holes of different sizes through which wire can be drawn to extrude it to increasingly fine proportions).<ref>E. G. Thomsen and H. H. Thomsen, 'Early Wire Drawing Through Dies', ''Journal of Manufacturing Science and Engineering'', 96.4 (November 1974), 1216–21.</ref>

The [[Bible]] provides a number of references to nails, including the story in [[Book of Judges|Judges]] of [[Jael]] the wife of Heber, who drives a nail (or tent-peg) into the temple of a sleeping Canaanite commander;<ref>Bible, Judges 4:21: "Then Jael Heber's wife took a nail of the tent, and took a hammer in her hand, and went softly unto him, and smote the nail into his temples, and fastened it into the ground: for he was fast asleep and weary. So he died."</ref> the provision of iron for nails by [[King David]] for what would become [[Solomon's Temple]];<ref>Bible, 1 Chronicles 22:3: "And David prepared iron in abundance for the nails for the doors of the gates, and for the joinings; and brass in abundance without weight[.]</ref> and in connection with the [[crucifixion]] of [[Jesus Christ]].

The [[Roman Empire|Romans]] made extensive use of nails. The [[Roman army]], for example, left behind seven tons of nails when it evacuated the fortress of [[Inchtuthil]] in Perthshire in Scotland in 86 to 87 CE.

The term "[[Penny (unit)|penny]]", as it refers to nails, probably originated in medieval England to describe the price of a [[long hundred|hundred]] nails. Nails themselves were sufficiently valuable and standardized to be used as an informal [[medium of exchange]].
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Until around 1800 artisans known as ''nailers'' or ''nailors'' made nails by hand – note the surname [[Naylor (disambiguation)|Naylor]].<ref>
{{cite book |last1        = Hanks
 |first1       = Patrick
 |author-link1 = Patrick Hanks
 |last2        = Hodges
 |first2       = Flavia
 |title        = A dictionary of surnames
 |location     = Oxford
 |publisher    = Oxford university Press
 |date         = 1988
 |page         = [https://archive.org/details/dictionaryofsurn00patr/page/384 384]
 |isbn         = 0192115928
 |quote        = Naylor [...]: occupational name for a maker of nails [...].
 |url-access   = registration
 |url          = https://archive.org/details/dictionaryofsurn00patr/page/384
}}
</ref>
(Workmen called ''slitters'' cut up iron bars to a suitable size for nailers to work on. From the late 16th century, manual slitters disappeared with the rise of the [[slitting mill]], which cut bars of iron into rods with an even cross-section, saving much manual effort.)

At the time of the [[American Revolution]], [[England]] was the largest manufacturer of nails in the world.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Wenkart |first1=Michael |title=50 scientific discoveries that changed the world |date=2014 |publisher=Books on Demand |isbn=978-3735724991 |page=221}}</ref> Nails were expensive and difficult to obtain in the [[Thirteen Colonies|American colonies]], so that abandoned houses were sometimes deliberately burned down to allow recovery of used nails from the ashes.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Temin |first1=Peter |title=Iron and Steel in Nineteenth-Century America: An Economic Inquiry |year=1964 |page=42 web|publisher=M.I.T. Press |isbn=9780262200035 |url=https://archive.org/details/ironsteelinninet00pete/page/42/mode/2up}}</ref> This became such a problem in [[Colony of Virginia|Virginia]] that a law was created to stop people from burning their houses when they moved.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://research.history.org/DigitalLibrary/View/index.cfm?doc=ResearchReports%5CRR0022.xml#n214|title=The Blacksmith in Colonial Virginia}}</ref> Families often had small nail-manufacturing setups in their homes; during bad weather and at night, the entire family might work at making nails for their own use and for barter. [[Thomas Jefferson]] wrote in a letter: "In our private pursuits it is a great advantage that every honest employment is deemed honorable. I am myself a nail maker."<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.westillholdthesetruths.org/quotes/444/in-our-private-pursuits-it-is |title=Thomas Jefferson letter to Jean Nicolas Démeunier |website=Quotes Database |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170510151320/http://www.westillholdthesetruths.org/quotes/444/in-our-private-pursuits-it-is |archive-date=2017-05-10}}</ref> The growth of the trade in the American colonies was theoretically held back by the prohibition of new slitting mills in America by the [[Iron Act]], though there is no evidence that the Act was actually enforced.

The production of wrought-iron nails continued well into the 19th century, but ultimately was reduced to nails for purposes for which the softer cut nails were unsuitable, including horseshoe nails.