Nail smith
Nail smith or nailer is a former craft occupation that deals with the production of iron nails .
history
The profession emerged as a special branch of the blacksmith's trade . Nail smiths or nailers were mostly affiliated with the blacksmith's guild and / or small blacksmiths , except in special centers such as B. Breslau, Nuremberg or Vienna. The nail smith was again divided into the black and white nail smiths. White nails were tinned nails, while black nails were baked black, blued or left raw after forging with linseed oil . The oldest evidence of nail smiths can be found in Stralsund (1340) or Nuremberg (1349), while iron nails were already in use during the Iron Age .
job profile
Manufacturing technology
The nail smith pulled out a square bar that had been heated to white heat in the forge at approx. 1350 ° C by forging and counter-forging on an anvil so that it was conically shaped and sharpened towards the end. Then he separated (scraped off) the rod and inserted the nail that had been caught, tip first, into one of the holes on the anvil or into the (attached) goat's foot- shaped nail iron and compressed the protruding end into the desired head shape. Sometimes a counter- die was used to create a special shape, e.g. B. to produce a perfect round head. After completion, a strong hammer blow on the anvil or the nail iron or quenching with water made it easier to remove the nail from the square hole. Smaller nails were in a heat , i.e. H. forged in one operation.
A skilled nail smith produced a daily workload of up to 2000 shoe nails. Depending on the type of nail, 15 to 60 strokes were required for one nail, and significantly more for large ship nails, for example.
Raw material and tools
The nail smiths obtained the raw material, the zaine or zoan , long rods made of tough nail or curly iron, from Zain smiths . They in turn obtained coarse bar material welded from sponge iron (rag) from the hammer smiths .
They used an anvil, staple, nail iron, spring, shot, blacksmith hammer, small pliers and the so-called nail stick, a 40 cm diameter and 70 cm high section of an oak trunk.
Nail shapes
Nails were made in a wide variety of shapes and for a wide variety of uses. There were angular and round nails, nails with smaller and larger, whole and half, with smooth, with pyramidal, with conical, hemispherical, so-called mushroom heads, with triangular and square ( horseshoe nails ); Furthermore, board nails, picket nails, clapboard nails, slate nails, carriage, pumpkin, rose, lock, shocker, sling, hoop and ribbon nails, bellows nails , locksmith nails , bricklayer nails , shoe nails (pinnacles, mouse heads), boat nails and goat nails. The largest were called lock nails and were up to 45 cm long, ship nails 20 to 25 cm. Others, like the purposes ( broquettes ) used by upholsterers, saddlers and wheelwrighters , were so tiny that a thousand pieces weighed only 125 g.
Training as a nail smith
As a rule, the apprenticeship as a nail smith was three years, the subsequent apprenticeship period two to four years and from the 15th century on were mostly completed as years of traveling . As a masterpiece , various nail irons and a certain number of nails had to be delivered in a precisely specified size. It must be noted that the raw material iron was very expensive until the industrial revolution .
Today's job situation
After the emergence of the machine production of nails from wire around 1800, the decline of this craft began in the middle of the 19th century. As an independent profession, it has now almost died out.
Nowadays, art blacksmiths usually do the forging of nails for special tasks, such as B. in the field of restoration , where traditionally forged nails are often used to meet the requirements. Furthermore, a nail that is forged live as possible is a popular souvenir . The nails can have a size of up to 50 cm, depending on the equipment of the workshop, the manufacture of which is an impressive testimony to craftsmanship and skill.
