LUNT CARPENTRY

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My least favorite kind of hammering is toenailing , angle nailing through one board into another. The classic toenail goes out the end of one board and into a second, right-angled one (Fig. 11). It's hard to do. You can split the board end off, drive too low or too high or push the board out of position.

To avoid these mishaps, start your nail at a spot on the board halfway up the nail's length. Drive it almost square to the wood until you get it started, then turn it to a 45° angle and pound it on down. If the board end splits, blunt the nail tip, start higher up on the board and/or predrill the hole. To keep your hammering from pushing the top board off line, start that board off the line in the other direction to compensate ahead of time for its tendency to slide. Or start a toenail on the opposite side of the board, and alternate driving the two nails to keep the board in place. Or simply hold the board in place with your foot, a wood block or clamps.

Actually, the fact that a toenailed board tends to move comes in handy when you do need to move a board over to a chalked line or nail a bowed board to a straight one. Just start a toenail in the direction you want the board to go and pound away!

One last nail tip: Never leave a nail in a loose piece of wood, most especially if its point is sticking out. Otherwise, sooner or later, without fail, somebody will injure either a tool or a foot on it. (One of my contractor buddies stepped on five such nails in one day, but luckily his extra-thick soles prevented real injury.)

Other Tools and Aids

Another surprisingly useful carpentry tool is string . It seems like anytime you want to establish a line to build to, you have to run out a taut length of string. Nylon is best; it's strong. To draw and tie it tight, use this trick: Drive a nail where the string needs to end, loop it around the nail eight or more times, then make another loop, draw the string through it, lay that round the nail and tighten (Fig. 12). It's remarkably easy to do and undo that knot.

PENNY (D) NAIL SIZE IN INCHES

Why are nails sized in "pennies"? In England, they used to be sold by the hundred. One hundred 2" nails cost six pennies, so they became known as sixpenny (6d) nails!

Penny        Length        No.per Lb.

2d        1        847

4d        1½        296

6d        2        167

8d        2½        01

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