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Stephen Tashiro
07-07-2009, 11:18 PM
I think now that Cliff has explained (in a thread about a dead computer) that "dead as a door nail" referred to those nails being hammered on both ends, the subject of nails deserves its own thread.

For one thing, there is the penny as price versus penny as weight debate to be settled in the sizing of nails. ( For example, this site prefers price as an explanation Woodworking: What The Heck Do Pennies Have To Do With Nails? - In the Woodshop. (http://www.inthewoodshop.org/general/wwa20.shtml)
Other sites prefer weight as an explanation.)


For another thing, hobnail boots have hob nails driven in the soles, but what is the "hob" in a hob nail?

What do toenails and fingernails have to do with nails?


When you hit the protruding end of a nail with a hammer to bend it flat, have you "clinched" it or "cinched" it?

Jim Rimmer
07-08-2009, 11:40 AM
I think now that Cliff has explained (in a thread about a dead computer) that "dead as a door nail" referred to those nails being hammered on both ends, the subject of nails deserves its own thread.

For one thing, there is the penny as price versus penny as weight debate to be settled in the sizing of nails. ( For example, this site prefers price as an explanation Woodworking: What The Heck Do Pennies Have To Do With Nails? - In the Woodshop. (http://www.inthewoodshop.org/general/wwa20.shtml)
Other sites prefer weight as an explanation.)


For another thing, hobnail boots have hob nails driven in the soles, but what is the "hob" in a hob nail?

What do toenails and fingernails have to do with nails?


When you hit the protruding end of a nail with a hammer to bend it flat, have you "clinched" it or "cinched" it?

I didn't do as much research as you obviously did but I did find a site that said "hob" is an archaic word meaning peg. The hobs (or pegs) protruded to provide better traction on muddy ground.

As best I can tell, fingernail comes from the Old English naegl or nagal describing what we now call nail.

As for bending a nail over, I call it clinching.

Lee Schierer
07-08-2009, 11:54 AM
The hobs are on the nails and were intended to provide traction. I believe they were first used by loggers for working the logs on the rivers as they floated them to the mills. Here is what a hobnail looks like:

http://img.tfd.com/wn/09/62BA6-hobnail.gif

Caspar Hauser
07-08-2009, 5:50 PM
Where I'm from bending over a nail is Clenching.

Aaron Berk
07-09-2009, 1:19 AM
I worked for White's Boots up in Ione Wa. the company was out of Spokane. We "clinched" boot tacks a thousand times over, and for the traction device, they were called corks. We cut corks from 10 foot lengths of 1/4 or 3/16?? inch round steel stock. The steel was heated then feed by hand into a massive hydrolic cutting machine that produced the corks along with "B.B's" that would have to be sorted out by hand.

Fun stuff, hand made boots.

Don't know much about nails though:D I like McFeeleys screws