NAILS (ante). The whole enormous industry of nail-making in this country, except for wall-mills and shoe-nails, which are cast, and sprigs, headless brads, etc., which are cut out of the plate, involves various machines for cutting and heading. Nearly two dozen patents for improvements in these machines had been granted here by the beginning of the century. The ore, whether hematite or magnetic, is smelted in a blast-furnace, run Into puddled, squeezed, and, if need be, hammered, rolled in the puddling-ball /rain, and cut to lengths. These are then fagotted, that is, piled so as to break joints. reheated to a white heat, drawn, passed through the nail-plate train, and the sheets, of the required width and thickness, allowed to cool. It is next cut across its length (the width of the sheet being usually about a foot) into strips which are a little wider than the length of the required nail. These plates, heated by being set on edge on hot coals, arc seized in a clamp and fed to the machine, end first. The pieces cut out are and slightly tapering. of course, with the fiber,. and-are squeezed and headed up by the machine before going into the trough. It is evident that the first cut to the right on a
plate and the last cut on the other side are blanks, though it would seem that an auto matic weigher, as in coining, would reject these into the waste heap. The difficulty of the operation lies in the fact that the cuts must IT alternate, so that the cutter must either turn half round at each cut, or the plate must be turned over. The great desid eratum is to do this automatically and reciprocally. There is no common or unvarying standard for classifying nails. The old way is by sizing from two-penny, 1 in. long, and now 880 to the up to thirty-penny. 4,} in. long, and 16 to the lb. The English names, 7 lb., 8 lb., etc., show that 1000 of that kind should weigh so much. They now, in fact, seldom do. The general divisions are: a. Material—copper, galvanized, etc.
b. Make—wrought, cut, cast.
c. Length or weight.
d. Size—fine, bastard or medium, heavy.
e. Points—fla;., sharp, clinch. • e. Heads—spur, clasp, clout, countersunk, etc.
f. Use—scupper, sheathing, fence, finishing, etc.