Know your way around the nail aisle at the hardware store, or do you feel lost amid all those little drawers? Get your bearings: Nails are not interchangeable. There are general-purpose nails used primarily in woodworking and specialty nails used with concrete and masonry.
A glossary: Common nails are thick and heavy-duty, with large flat heads, and are used in framing carpentry and other rough work. Finish nails are used to fasten trim and cabinets, when you don’t want the heads to show; carpenters put a steel tool called a nailset into the nail’s cupped head to hammer the head below the surface of the wood. Wood filler masks the hole.
Casing nails are like finishing nails, but used for heavier-duty work; the nails themselves are thicker and heavier. Brads are very small finishing nails, usually no more than an inch long.
Cut flooring nails are rectangular with blunt tips that won’t split the wood as they go through the edges. Roofing nails, used to hold roofing felt, shingles, shakes, etc., have large heads and ringed shanks so the material won’t come away from the sheathing easily. Masonry or concrete nails are made of thick, hardened steel with a grooved or fluted shank that can be round, flat or square.
Gutter spikes are 6- to 8-inch nails used to secure gutters. Drywall nails have large heads and ringed shanks for attaching drywall to studs. Most professionals use them; most do-it-yourselfers use drywall screws. Duplex or scaffold nails have two heads–one that is driven against the material to hold in place, the second for easy removal. These are usually used to fasten work temporarily.
Tacks have short shanks and are used to fasten upholstery or carpet.
Need to know: Most nails are made from steel or stainless steel. Nail length is measured in inches or designated by the word “penny,” which once referred to their price per hundred. A 10-penny nail (known as a 10d) is 3 inches long, a two-penny is 1 inch long, a 60d is 6 inches long. Nail diameter typically increases with length.
Be sure to ask: Are the nails galvanized, to prevent them from rusting? That’s important if you’re doing an outdoor project, such as a roof or deck.
Don’t do this: Don’t try to use a nail for purposes it wasn’t intended. For example, don’t use barbed or ringed nails if you plan to remove them; their sharp-edged ridges are designed to lock into the wood, and if you try pulling them out, you’ll do damage.
Bad advice: “Drive nails through thicker pieces of wood into thinner ones.” Actually, it’s the other way around. The nail should be three times as long as the thickness of the thin piece, so that two-thirds of the nail will be in the thicker piece to hold it better.
