Nailed it

I've kind of lost count, let's say Part 4 of The Schoolbox

I genuinely believed I’d finish this project over the Christmas break, yet here we are. What I can tell you is I glued, planed and thicknessed the bottom, left it for a week and then yesterday got round to nailing it on and planing to size. The 1/2” bottom had started to curl up like a Pringle, but thankfully nailing it to the box easily fixed that.

I think it’s starting to look distinctly box-like.

For reasons I’ve never fully understood, nails have a bad rep here in the UK. My impression is that they are generally seen as a second rate fixing option in comparison to screws. Which couldn’t be further from the truth. A well chosen nail, installed with skill, provides a tenacious fixing. They’re an historically accurate method and are quick to use, as well as looking good when done right. So I like nails. My working theory on this mindset is all to do with ‘progress’. When the new technology of the industrial revolution brought screws to an affordable level for wider use, in parallel nails were ‘industrialised’ and became an inferior quality product. Traditional cut nails don’t so readily lend themselves to mass production so wire nails became more commonplace. A wire nail is alright in some circumstances, but it has neither the holding power nor appearance of a cut nail. So thanks industrial revolution, you fucked nails for us all.

My local town of Belper was originally a nailers settlement. A small town grew around the trade of nail making and Belper became renowned for the quality of its nails. As with many English towns, the industrial revolution changed everything and the trade would have died off as industrial production methods rendered hand work unviable. The buildings of the town tell the story of what happened next. A huge red brick textile mill towers over the town and I’m presuming generated employment for many of the nailers, whose original skill was no longer needed. I’d be delighted if I could wander down to Belper nowadays and buy a bag of cut nails, but the only nails I’m going to be offered would be the painted kind on the ends of my fingers. And I’m not really into that. Honest.

Actually if you look in the right place you can still buy good nails. The ones I used for nailing the bottom on weren’t perfect for the job, as they had a larger head than I wanted, but they were near enough. I think they are the Fine Finish nails sold by Lee Valley. I ground down an old nail set to give me a punch shaped to suit the head of the nails.

I’m using the 4d nails here, which are 1 1/2” long. Just right for fixing 1/2” material. Really what I needed was a tapered drill bit to pilot hole these, but I don’t have one. So I used a 2mm drill as the pilot hole and then gave it some extra girth at the top with a light boring from my birdcage awl. The pine is soft enough to squash to accommodate the head.

Every single time I pick up a cut nail I remind myself that the wedge action of it must act along the grain not across it. I have yet to absent mindedly bang one in the wrong way round and split the board. There’s time yet though.

Banging in some nails gave me the opportunity to use my Favourite hammer - a Marples bar pein. It’s an uncommon form of hammer and is a little crudely made. And I like it all the more because of that. Psychologists make of that what you will.

When I start banging in nails, my Apple Watch warns me that I am exceeding the safe decibel limit for noise exposure. Momentarily I stop to contemplate the juxtaposition of old and new technology in this tableau. Then I press ignore and carry on, on the basis that I am already going deaf anyway. Frankly it’s a wonder I heard the noise exposure warning.

With the over-size bottom nailed on, the next task is to plane to size. This is a combination of long and end grain, which I tackled with by Lie-Nielsen 5 1/2, fitted with a mostly straight blade. I interchange between a heavily cambered A2 blade and a mostly straight O1 blade on this plane, depending on the task.

The work holding for the box needs a little thinking. It doesn’t quite fit in my face vice, so I chose some boards that fitted inside and pinned these to the bench with holdfasts. I snugged the box up to the jaw of the closed face vice to resist the planing forces as I worked.

Next time I’ll be moving onto making the lid, then I’ll probably tackle the mouldings for the base of the box and the lid at the same time. Before I can install the mouldings I need to source some headless cut brads. Maybe I’ll call in at the Sapphire nail bar in town just on the off-chance I have misunderstood their business model.