For careful nailing observe the following:

1. A line should be run to locate the centers of the nails.

It is best to run this line on both sides and on both edges of the board. And, since the surfaces are usually "cleaned," i. e., planed and sand papered, before the nailing is done, these center lines should be very light pencil lines rather than knife or gage lines.

2. Start the nails on the center lines.

It will then be easy to tell whether or not they will go into the second piece without coming thru on one side or the other. In Fig. 33, nail A would enter piece X properly, while nail B would surely pass out the side. If any nails are started wrong they should be drawn out and started again.

3. Clamp or hold pieces in position, i. e., so that the center lines for the nails will coincide.

4. Drive the nails nearly all the way in, but leave them so that the claw of the hammer can easily draw them out if necessary.

Fig. 33.

5. Inspect the work, and, if the pieces are in their proper positions and no nails show a tendency to come thru anywhere, drive the nails in and set them.

Nails hold best if they are driven at a slant for they then act like dovetails. It is always possible to slant nails in two directions without their coming thru the sides of the second piece.

Important: Use a brad-awl for small nails and a small bit for larger ones whenever a nail would be likely to split the wood. A little paraffine, or even soap, will be of great help in driving nails into hard wood. The soap will rust the nails, however, while the paraffine will not.

Reference Work:

1. Look up blind or splinter nailing, toe-nailing, clinching.

2. How does the carpenter hold his hammer for heavy nailing?

3. Collect, mount, and label all the different nails that you can find. (The hardware man will very likely help you.) Here are a few that you should find: single and double-pointed tacks of various sizes and weights, rivets, dogs, finish, and common nails, brads, cut nails, copper and galvanized nails, furniture nails and tacks.

4. Do the same for screws.

It would be interesting to trace the making of a nail from the ore thru the blast furnace, the Bessemer converter, the rolling mills and the reheating and wire drawing processes to the stamping mills. Thence thru the packing and shipping departments to the freight depot, to your own town, to your own merchant, and to yourself. If you wish to make this study, if you wish to learn something of this great world of industry, something of the men who have developed it, something of the priceless inheritance that they have given you, let me recommend that you read Inventors at Work, by Geo. H. Iies, and also his Flame Electricity and the Camera.