Editing Nail (fastener) (section)

==Materials==
Nails were formerly made of [[bronze]] or [[wrought iron]] and were crafted by blacksmiths and nailors. These crafts people used a heated square iron rod that they forged before they hammered the sides which formed a point. After reheating and cutting off, the blacksmith or nailor inserted the hot nail into an opening and hammered it.<ref name="uovmt">{{cite web |last1=Visser |first1=Thomas D. |title=Nails: Clues to a Building's History |url=https://www.uvm.edu/~histpres/203/nails.html |website=University of Vermont |access-date=1 September 2019}}</ref> Later new ways of making nails were created using machines to shear the nails before wiggling the bar sideways to produce a shank. For example, the Type A cut nails were sheared from an iron bar type guillotine using early machinery. This method was slightly altered until the 1820s when new heads on the nails' ends were pounded via a separate mechanical nail heading machine. In the 1810s, iron bars were flipped over after each stroke while the cutter set was at an angle. Every nail was then sheared off of taper allowing for an automatic grip of each nail which also formed their heads.<ref name="uovmt"/> Type B nails were created this way.  In 1886, 10 percent of the nails that were made in the United States were of the soft steel wire variety and by 1892, steel wire nails overtook iron cut nails as the main type of nails that were being produced. In 1913, wire nails were 90 percent of all nails that were produced.<ref name="uovmt"/>

Today's nails are typically made of [[steel]], often dipped or coated to prevent [[corrosion]] in harsh conditions or to improve [[adhesion]]. Ordinary nails for wood are usually of a soft, low-carbon or "mild" steel (about 0.1% carbon, the rest iron and perhaps a trace of silicon or manganese). Nails for masonry applications are tempered and have a higher carbon content.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Ching |first1=Francis D. K. |last2=Mulville |first2=Mark |title=European Building Construction Illustrated |date=10 February 2014 |publisher=John Wiley & Sons |isbn=978-1-119-95317-3 |page=59 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=mV07BAAAQBAJ&pg=PA59 |language=en}}</ref>