page_title: Nail (fastener)
section_title: Usage
hierarchical_section_title: Nail (fastener) / Usage
caption_attribution_description: Horseshoe nails used for holding the glass pieces in place in lead-came glasswork
context_page_description: In woodworking and construction, a nail is a small object made of metal which is used as a fastener, as a peg to hang something, or sometimes as a decoration. Generally, nails have a sharp point on one end and a flattened head on the other, but headless nails are available. Nails are made in a great variety of forms for specialized purposes. The most common is a wire nail. Other types of nails include pins, tacks, brads, spikes, and cleats.
  Nails are typically driven into the workpiece by a hammer or pneumatic nail gun. A nail holds materials together by friction in the axial direction and shear strength laterally. The point of the nail is also sometimes bent over or clinched after driving to prevent pulling out.
context_section_description: Types of nail include:
  Aluminum nails – Made of aluminum in many shapes and sizes for use with aluminum architectural metals
  Box nail – like a common nail but with a thinner shank and head
  Brads are small, thin, tapered, nails with a lip or projection to one side rather than a full head or a small finish nail
  Floor brad ('stigs') – flat, tapered and angular, for use in fixing floor boards
  Oval brad – Ovals utilize the principles of fracture mechanics to allow nailing without splitting. Highly anisotropic materials like regular wood (as opposed to wood composites) can easily be wedged apart. Use of an oval perpendicular to the wood's grain cuts the wood fibers rather than wedges them apart, and thus allows fastening without splitting, even close to edges
  Panel pins
  Tacks or Tintacks are short, sharp pointed nails often used with carpet, fabric and paper Normally cut from sheet steel (as opposed to wire); the tack is used in upholstery, shoe making and saddle manufacture. The triangular shape of the nail's cross section gives greater grip and less tearing of materials such as cloth and leather compared to a wire nail.
  Brass tack – brass tacks are commonly used where corrosion may be an issue, such as furniture where contact with human skin salts will cause corrosion on steel nails
  Canoe tack – A clinching (or clenching) nail. The nail point is tapered so that it can be turned back on itself using a clinching iron. It then bites back into the wood from the side opposite the nail's head, forming a rivet-like fastening.
  Shoe tack – A clinching nail (see above) for clinching leather and sometimes wood, formerly used for handmade shoes.
  Carpet tack
  Upholstery tacks – used to attach coverings to furniture
  Thumbtack (or "push-pin" or "drawing-pin") are lightweight pins used to secure paper or cardboard.
  Casing nails – have a head that is smoothly tapered, in comparison to the "stepped" head of a finish nail. When used to install casing around windows or doors, they allow the wood to be pried off later with minimal damage when repairs are needed, and without the need to dent the face of the casing in order to grab and extract the nail. Once the casing has been removed, the nails can be extracted from the inner frame with any of the usual nail pullers
  Clout nail – a roofing nail
  Coffin nail – general name for a nail used in a Coffin, slang for a cigarette and/or the final nail. Used less due to metal coffin manufacturing.
  Coil nail – nails designed for use in a pneumatic nail gun assembled in coils
  Common nail – smooth shank, wire nail with a heavy, flat head. The typical nail for framing
  Convex head (nipple head, springhead) roofing nail – an umbrella shaped head with a rubber gasket for fastening metal roofing, usually with a ring shank
  Copper nail – nails made of copper for use with copper flashing or slate shingles etc.
  Corrugated fastener (wiggle nail) – a corrugated shaped piece of metal driven into miter joints in some furniture
  Date nail – tagging device utilized by railroads to visually identify the age of a railroad tie
  D-head (clipped head) nail – a common or box nail with part of the head removed such as when assembled into a "stick" for some pneumatic nail guns
  Double-ended nail – a rare type of nail with points on both ends and the "head" in the middle for joining boards together. See this patent. Similar to a dowel nail but with a head on the shank.
  Double-headed (duplex, formwork, shutter, scaffold) nail – used for temporary nailing; nails can easily pulled for later disassembly
  Dowel nail – a double pointed nail without a "head" on the shank, a piece of round steel sharpened on both ends
  Drywall (plasterboard) nail – short, hardened, ring-shank nail with a very thin head
  Fiber cement nail – a nail for installing fiber cement siding
  Finish nail (bullet head nail, lost-head nail) – A wire nail with a small head intended to be minimally visible or driven below the wood surface and the hole filled to be invisible
  Gang nail – a nail plate
  Hardboard pin – a small nail for fixing hardboard or thin plywood, often with a sq
caption: Horseshoe nails
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