Democratic Sentinel, Volume 16, Number 45, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 25 November 1892 — Wire Nails. [ARTICLE]

Wire Nails.

It was only a few years ago that th« first wire nails were used in this country, but now the industry has attained large proportions. This is well shown I y a machine shipped from Greenpoint, N. Y., to Everett, Wash. The machine weighed 12J tons, and turns out nails—spikes would be a better term—7-16 of an inch in diameter, 12 inches long and weighing just bait a pound each. The wire from which they are made passes between a series of rolls which straighten it, and is then grasped by a pair of jaws which pull it forward the proper distance to make a nail. It ia then firmly gripped in another set of jaws and the head is formed by a poweiful blow with a die of the propel shape. The headed wire is then pushed along until other dies cut off and thupe the point and the finished nail falls from the machine. If anyone had prophesied five years ago that the little wire brads then coming into use would be followed in a few years by such spikes, he would have found few believers. Solomon died of wjaiineee at tit vanity of human Ilfs.