Which type of nail do I need for the job?

Nails have not been simplified the way screws have; the shape of the shank and the head are the whole specification, and each variant exists to solve a particular failure.

Step by step

1. Decide whether the nail will be seen.If it will, you want an oval, lost head or panel pin whose small head can be punched below the surface and filled. A round wire head cannot be hidden.
2. Use oval nails in joinery.The oval section, driven with its long axis along the grain, wedges the fibres apart far less than a round shank and greatly reduces splitting in skirting and architrave.
3. Use lost head nails where the head must disappear.A small head that a nail punch drives cleanly below the surface, leaving a hole small enough to fill invisibly.
4. Use round wire nails for rough structural work.Studwork, formwork, crates. Cheap, strong in shear, and with a big head that will not pull through. They split finished timber readily, so keep them out of sight.
5. Use ring shank nails where withdrawal matters.The rings act like a coarse one-way thread. Floorboards, decking, sheathing and anything that will be walked on or that expands and contracts. They are very hard to remove, which is the point.
6. Use clout nails for sheet and mesh.A short shank with a wide flat head, galvanised, for roofing felt, fencing wire and plasterboard-to-timber in older work. The head is what does the job.
7. Use panel pins for beading and thin stock.Very fine, minimal head, usually driven with a pin hammer or a pin gun and used with glue. On their own they hold very little.
8. Treat masonry nails with caution.Hardened steel driven straight into mortar for battens and light fixings. They are brittle, they fly when they snap, and they do not suit any load worth worrying about.
9. Match the finish to the environment.Bright steel indoors only. Galvanised for outdoors and for treated timber; stainless for oak, cedar and anywhere staining would show, since tannins attack ordinary steel.
10. Choose the length by the three-times rule.As a working guide, roughly two thirds of the nail should end up in the receiving piece, so a nail about three times the thickness of the piece being fixed.

Tips

• Blunting the point of a nail with a light tap of the hammer stops it splitting timber — it punches the fibres rather than wedging them.
• In oak, cedar and other tannin-rich timbers use stainless. Galvanised will stain the timber black within a season outdoors.
• Ring shank nails are effectively permanent. Do not use them anywhere you might want to take apart.

Common mistakes

• Using round wire nails in skirting and architrave — The round shank wedges the grain apart and the head cannot be punched below the surface, so the timber splits and the fixing shows.
• Using bright steel nails outdoors or in treated timber — They rust within months, staining the timber and losing section. Treated timber is chemically aggressive to unprotected steel.

If it doesn't work

Questions people ask