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meticulously documenting 19th century residential and commercial square or machine "cut" iron nails

in preparation for my "deconstructing chicago" publication (slated for completion after "unearthing chicago hits circulation),  i continue data-gathering by documenting any and all building material used in the construction of the balloon frame, beginning from the 1840's on through the 1880's. all of the material collected thus far has been carefully harvested from numerous demolitions happening all around the city of chicago. in prior posts, i've provided hundreds of images of sill plate sections, with an emphasis on the various configurations of connectivity between these large beams that rest on limestone, cedar posts, or several courses of brick.

an interesting side note: the structures where the sills rest directly on the limestone are hard to come by, whereas the cottages resting on brick are the most common. this is because most of these wood-framed structures were required to have a brick foundation based on revised building codes following the great chicago fire. the houses supported by cedar posts are also quite common, since so many houses were being moved all around the city throughout the latter half of the 19th century.

this post focuses on the square or cut nails, or "spikes", i've carefully removed from the sill plates, studs and moldings in demolished houses and commercial buildings spanning a fifty year period (i.e., 1840-1890). all of the nails are comprised of iron (more malleable and thus, less susceptible to breaking) with machine cut shanks and hand-hammered heads that involved the use of heading tools. the shanks are largely consistent throughout, although a fraction do contain beveled or chamfered edges around the widest point of the tapered shank, just under the nail head. no two nail heads are alike, but raised circle and square profiles are found on the larger "spikes" that were used in sill plate joinery.

a short history of the nail and its fabrication (written by mark chervenka) is provided below. 

nails are fasteners because of the cellular structure of wood on the microscopic level. as a nail is driven into wood, the tip of the nail pushes apart or crushes wood cells in its path. when the tip of the nail passes, the cells spring back and try to resume their former positions. this applies pressure to the nail shank in the opposite direction of the nail path and creates resistance which holds the nail in place. the principle is the same for all nails old or modern regardless of shape or how they were made. mathematical formulas can accurately predict the holding power of nails based on size of nail, depth nail is driven, and the species and moisture content of the wood.

sill plate "spikes" salvaged from the john kent russell house (c. 1855) during its demoliton.

nails have been in use since the beginning of the bronze age, ca. 1800 b.c. from that time to the beginning of the 19th century, ca. 1790-1810, most nails were made entirely by hand at the forge. a nail cutting machine designed in the 1790s cut the nail's shank and reduced hand labor to only forming the head of the nail. at the time of their introduction, these machine cut nails were sometimes referred to as "cold nails" because they were not made at the forge. these machine/handmade nails were used up to the end of the 19th century. by the 1890s, the entire nail was completely machine formed producing the rounded shank or wire nail that continues in use today.

american hand wrought nails--those made entirely by hand or headed by hand--were done by metal workers specializing in nail-making as well as blacksmiths who made nails part time or to order. the work was hard and gave rise to an early expression, "to work like a nailer" used to describe any intense activity. most of these nails were formed from a nail rod, a bar of iron available from iron mills close to the approximate size of the nail. nail rods were at first imported by american nail makers from mills in england but later used bars made in the colonies.

the first step in making a hand forged nail was to form the shank. next, the head was formed with a heading tool. early nails have two types of heads: a round head whose head is above the surface of the wood and used for general purpose fastening and a t-head whose head is driven below the surface and used for finish work. the forged round head nail is also called a rose head because the hammered head often resembles the petals on a rose. a variation of the t-head, the l-head, is the same as a t-head but with half the head cut off. cross sections of pre-1800 nails are generally square; shanks from 1800-1890 are rectangular; modern shanks are round.

the earliest forged nails are identified by their irregular shanks and hammer marks on both shanks and heads. when viewed from above, early round heads have a meandering outline that is anything but round. later machine cut shanks will still show hammering which was necessary to form the head. fully machine-made nails used since the 1890's have round shanks and round heads.

 

by the early 1890's, wire nails were rapidly becoming the choice "fastener" in the construction trade, but square nails were still being used into the early 20th century.



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