Editing Nail (fastener) (section)

===Wire===
Wire nails are formed from wire. Usually coils of wire are drawn through a series of dies to reach a specific diameter, then cut into short rods that are then formed into nails. The nail tip is usually cut by a blade; the head is formed by reshaping the other end of the rod under high pressure. Other dies are used to cut grooves and ridges. Wire nails were also known as "French nails" for their country of origin.<ref>{{cite book |title=Notes on Building Construction. Part III. Materials |url=https://archive.org/details/notesonbuilding00artgoog |location=London, Oxford, and Cambridge |publisher=Rivingtons |date=1879 |page=[https://archive.org/details/notesonbuilding00artgoog/page/n473 441]}}</ref> Belgian wire nails began to compete in England in 1863. [[Joseph Henry Nettlefold]] was making wire nails at [[Smethwick]] by 1875.<ref name=Sjögren/> Over the following decades, the nail-making process was almost completely automated. Eventually the industry had machines capable of quickly producing huge numbers of inexpensive nails with little or no human intervention.<ref>{{cite news |title=A New English Nail Machine |url=https://archive.org/stream/hardwaremerch1890toro#page/n132/mode/1up |access-date=19 April 2013 |newspaper=Hardware |date=7 Feb 1890}}</ref>

With the introduction of cheap wire nails, the use of wrought iron for nail making quickly declined, as more slowly did the production of cut nails. In the United States, in 1892 more steel-wire nails were produced than cut nails. In 1913, 90% of manufactured nails were wire nails.  Nails went from being rare and precious to being a cheap mass-produced commodity. Today almost all nails are manufactured from wire, but the term "wire nail" has come to refer to smaller nails, often available in a wider, more precise range of gauges than is typical for larger common and finish nails. Today, many nails are made using the modern rotary principle nail machine, which allows wire feeding, wire cutting and nail head forming to take place in one continuous process of rotating movements. <ref>{{cite web |title=About ENKOTEC |url=https://www.enkotec.com/about-enkotec |website=ENKOTEC |access-date=28 Jun 2023}}</ref>