Making Nails
Steve McGrew, Incandescent Ironworks Ltd., May 4, 2012
Making nails is very easy. You might never need to make nails, but it's worthwhile knowing how.
You will need an anvil, hammer, cutter, and a nail header; and will need 1/4" round or square steel stock.
Make the tools
It's really very simple to make nails, after you make a nail heading tool.
A nail header is simply a hole through a thick piece of steel on the end of a handle, and it serves as a bolster while you form the nail head.
Here is a crude nail header. The hardie hole beside the header is 1" square.
Nail Heading Tool
The back of the header and its handle are flat so they can lie flat against the anvil face. The bolster hole is a bit larger than the nail shaft will be, and tapers out slightly larger toward the flat back. The top edge of the bolster hole is countersunk very slightly.
A simple cutting hardie can be made by welding a piece of angle iron to a stem that fits your hardie hole, grinding the edge to about 45 degrees, then hardening by heating to non-magnetic and quenching in water. If mild steel is used for the cutting hardie, no tempering is needed, only hardening. The tool will get damaged in use, but then you can simply re-grind the edge.
A simple cutting hardie
Stock
To make nails, I use 1/4" round rod that has been unrolled from a coil spring.
1/4" spring stock
Draw out and taper
The first step is to draw out and taper the end of your stock. If you use spring steel, be sure not to overheat it or to work it cold. Only work the metal while it is between red and a middle orange color. If it's too hot or cold it will weaken during forging.
Key to success in making nails is to form a shoulder while drawing out the stock. The portion of stock being drawn out will lengthen by a factor of about 3.25, so if you want a nail that is 2.5" long, form the shoulder starting about three quarters of an inch from the end. [(2.5" / 3.25) = .76] Use a slightly rounded edge of the anvil face to form the shoulder. It's okay if the shoulder is not symmetric at this point.
Shoulder distance from end
Reduce the stock to a square cross section, with the side of the square about 1/2 of the diameter of the original stock. Taper it slightly toward the tip. It will look about like this after it is drawn out.
Forming the shoulder
Shoulder and square taper
The Head
To form the head, first cut the stock about 3/8" above the shoulder.
Now heat just the nail head. You can do this using a torch, or you can set the nail head-down in your coal fire, or you can do it in a gas forge by covering the shaft of the nail with a piece of firebrick.
Drop the nail into the hole in your heading tool.
Only the head is hot
Set the heading tool on your anvil face with the nail protruding down into the anvil's pritchel hole, and hammer out the nail head.
With your first blow, knock the head over so that it is centered on the nail shaft, then hammer straight down once, then once on each of 4 sides, and finally once again straight down in the middle.
Turn the heading tool over, tap on the edge of your anvil to knock out the nail, and you're done.
It's a nail!