A Guide to Choosing the Right Nails for Roof by Preferred Roofing Supply

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As a homeowner, it&#;s essential to ensure that your roof is installed with the proper materials and techniques to protect your property from the elements. And one of the most crucial components of a well-built roof is the nails. Choosing the right nails can make all the difference in deciding the longevity and durability of your roof, as well as its ability to withstand harsh weather conditions.

In this guide, we&#;ll explore the available types of nails for roof. This will help you make an informed decision that will keep your roof secure for years to come. Want to know more? Please read on!

Smooth Shank Nails

Smooth shank nails are a popular choice for roofing projects, as they offer greater durability and strength than other types of nails. They are made with a smooth, uniform shank that offers extra holding power when driven into solid materials and helps provide a better grip for the nail head. These nails come in various sizes and lengths to meet different needs. 

One of the main applications of smooth shank nails is in decking, siding, and framing projects. They can be used in both interior and exterior jobs due to their superior hold. Smooth shank nails have a high tensile strength that makes them great for heavy-duty fastening materials like hardwood or particleboard. Additionally, these nails are often used for attaching drywall as they create less dust than standard nails.

The main advantage of using smooth shank nails is their increased holding power due to the shape of the shank. These types of nails also provide an improved aesthetic look by creating a more uniform finish than other nail types. 

However, there are some drawbacks to using smooth shank nails, too; they may require more force when being hammer driven in order to set them properly, which can create difficulty if you&#;re trying to drive one into harder surfaces like concrete or brickwork. 

Additionally, there&#;s also the risk of splitting wood when using these types of fasteners, as they tend to penetrate deeper into softer woods than other nail varieties.

Overall, smooth shank nails can be a good option for roofing projects that don&#;t require a lot of holding power. If you&#;re unsure about the right type of roofing nail to use for your property, consult with a professional roofing contractor or supplier like Preferred Roofing Supply to get expert advice.

Ring Shank Nails

Ring shank nails are a popular choice for roofing construction because of their superior holding power. They feature a groove or series of rings around the nail&#;s shaft and are designed to provide extra grip when driven into the wood. These nails are made from high-grade steel and come in various sizes and lengths.

The grooved shape of ring shank nails helps ensure secure penetration, even on hardwoods such as cedar, oak, and redwood. As they&#;re driven into the wood, they expand slightly, creating a secure connection that&#;s less susceptible to pull out over time. Ring shank nails also have excellent corrosion resistance, allowing them to stand up to harsh weather conditions. 

The applications for ring shank nails are nearly endless; from securing roofing materials to siding and framing lumber, these nails can handle just about any job you may have for them. One key advantage is that their design ensures fast installation; simply drive the nail in with a nail gun or hammer, and you&#;re done!

Although ring shank nails offer many benefits, there are some drawbacks worth noting. While they create strong connections, they tend to be more expensive than standard circular head nails due to their specialized design. Additionally, because of their angular shape, they can be difficult to remove should the need arise; using pliers to remove them is often necessary. 

Square Cap Nails

Square cap nails are a type of fastening system that uses a small and square-shaped head. They are built to be used with thin materials such as sheet metal, asphalt shingles, and other lightweight pieces. These nails offer superior holding power due to their design which allows the nail to penetrate deeper into the material.

Square cap nails can be used in many applications, ranging from roofing projects to siding panels. The most common use is in roofing, as they provide an effective way to secure different layers of materials together while also providing water resistance. Additionally, the edges of the square head help distribute pressure more evenly across the surface it&#;s connected to, which makes them an ideal choice for roof construction projects.

Although square cap nails have many advantages, there are some drawbacks that should be taken into consideration when choosing this type of fastener for your project. Due to their thin and short design, they do not provide much resistance against heavy-duty impacts or vibrations. Additionally, if exposed to moisture over time, they can corrode quickly. For these reasons, it&#;s important that these fasteners are used only for light-duty projects where durability isn&#;t a major concern.

Factors to Consider When Choosing Roofing Nails

There are several factors you should consider when selecting nails for roof:

• Roofing Material: The type of roofing material you&#;re using will affect the type of nails you need. For example, asphalt shingles require a different type of nail than metal roofing.

• Climate: The weather conditions in your area should also be taken into account.

  High winds

  or heavy rainfall may require nails with more holding power.

• Length and Diameter: The length and diameter of the nails you choose should be appropriate for the roofing material and the thickness of the sheathing.

• Corrosion Resistance: Roofing nails should be resistant to rust and corrosion to ensure they hold up over time.

• Building Code Requirements: Check local building codes to ensure you&#;re using nails that meet the required standards.

• Installation Method: The method of installation can also impact the type of nails you need. For example, pneumatic

  nail guns

  require specific

  types of nails.

By considering these factors and consulting with a professional roofing contractor or supplier like Preferred Roofing Supply, you can choose the right nails for your roofing project and ensure a secure and long-lasting roof.

Proper Installation Techniques for Roofing Nails

Choosing the right roofing nails is just one part of the equation for a durable and long-lasting roof. Proper installation techniques are equally important to ensure the nails hold up over time. Here are some tips for the proper installation of roofing nails:

• Use the right type of hammer: When using traditional hammering methods, use a hammer that is appropriate for the size and weight of the nails.

• Use the right amount of force: Use enough force to drive the nail in, but not so much that it damages the roofing material.

• Proper placement: Nails should be placed in the appropriate spots on the roofing material, as recommended by the manufacturer.

• Spacing: Nails should be spaced appropriately, as recommended by the manufacturer. Improper spacing can lead to weak spots in the roof.

• Avoid overdriving: Overdriving nails can damage the roofing material and reduce the holding power of the nail.

• Use the right installation method: Different roofing materials may require different installation methods, such as pneumatic

  nail guns

  or hand nailing.

It is always recommended to consult a professional roofer before undertaking any such job at your home. 

Common Mistakes to Avoid When Using Roofing Nails

Here are a few things to keep in mind:

• Choosing the wrong type of nail for your roofing material can lead to problems down the line. Make sure to select the right nail for the job.

• Overdriving or underdriving nails can cause leaks and other issues. Be sure to use the correct amount of force when driving nails into your roof.

• Using too few nails or spacing them too far apart can also compromise the integrity of your roof. Always follow manufacturer recommendations for nail placement.

By avoiding these mistakes, you can ensure a strong, secure roof that will stand the test of time.

Conclusion: Trust Preferred Roofing Supply for High-Quality Nails for Roof and Expert Advice

At Preferred Roofing Supply, we offer a wide range of high-quality roofing nails, including smooth shank, ring shank, and square cap nails, to suit different roofing materials and applications.

Moreover, our team of experts is always ready to offer advice and guidance on the best installation practices to ensure a long-lasting and secure roof. 

Whether you are a professional roofing contractor or a DIY enthusiast, Preferred Roofing Supply has everything you need to get the job done right. Contact us today to learn more about our roofing products and services.

Sharp object of hard metal used as a fastener

Nail

A metal nail

ClassificationFastenerUsed withWood, concrete

In woodworking and construction, a nail is a small object made of metal (or wood, called a tree nail or "trunnel") which is used as a fastener, as a peg to hang something, or sometimes as a decoration.[1] Generally, nails have a sharp point on one end and a flattened head on the other, but headless nails are available. Nails are made in a great variety of forms for specialized purposes. The most common is a wire nail.[2] Other types of nails include pins, tacks, brads, spikes, and cleats.

Nails are typically driven into the workpiece by a hammer or nail gun. A nail holds materials together by friction in the axial direction and shear strength laterally. The point of the nail is also sometimes bent over or clinched after driving to prevent pulling out.

History

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The history of the nail is divided roughly into three distinct periods:

• Hand-wrought (forged) nail (pre-history until 19th century)
• Cut nail (roughly to )
• Wire nail (roughly to the present)

From the late s to the mid-s, nail prices fell by a factor of 10; since then nail prices have increased slightly, reflecting in part an upturn in materials prices and a shift toward specialty nails.[3]

Hand wrought

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Hand-forging a nail, including use of a nail-header

Partly mechanised boat nail production in Hainan, China

In hand-working of nails, a smith works an approximately conical iron pin tapering to a point. This is then inserted into a nail-header (also known as a nail-plate), essentially a plate of iron with a small hole in it. The broad end of the pin is slightly wider than the hole of the nail-header: the smith fits the pin into the hole of the nail-header and then hammers the broad end of the pin. Unable to advance through the hole, the broad end is flattened against the nail-header to create a nail-head. In at least some metalworking traditions, nail-headers might have been identical to draw-plates (a plate bored with tapering holes of different sizes through which wire can be drawn to extrude it to increasingly fine proportions).[4]

The Bible provides a number of references to nails, including the story in Judges of Jael the wife of Heber, who drives a nail (or tent-peg) into the temple of a sleeping Canaanite commander;[5] the provision of iron for nails by King David for what would become Solomon's Temple;[6] and in connection with the crucifixion of Jesus Christ.

The Romans made extensive use of nails. The Roman army, for example, left behind seven tons of nails when it evacuated the fortress of Inchtuthil in Perthshire in Scotland in 86 to 87 CE.

The term "penny", as it refers to nails, probably originated in medieval England to describe the price of a hundred nails. Nails themselves were sufficiently valuable and standardized to be used as an informal medium of exchange.

Until around artisans known as nailers or nailors made nails by hand &#; note the surname Naylor.[7] (Workmen called slitters cut up iron bars to a suitable size for nailers to work on. From the late 16th century, manual slitters disappeared with the rise of the slitting mill, which cut bars of iron into rods with an even cross-section, saving much manual effort.)

At the time of the American Revolution, England was the largest manufacturer of nails in the world.[8] Nails were expensive and difficult to obtain in the American colonies, so that abandoned houses were sometimes deliberately burned down to allow recovery of used nails from the ashes.[9] This became such a problem in Virginia that a law was created to stop people from burning their houses when they moved.[10] Families often had small nail-manufacturing setups in their homes; during bad weather and at night, the entire family might work at making nails for their own use and for barter. Thomas Jefferson wrote in a letter: "In our private pursuits it is a great advantage that every honest employment is deemed honorable. I am myself a nail maker."[11] The growth of the trade in the American colonies was theoretically held back by the prohibition of new slitting mills in America by the Iron Act of , though there is no evidence that the Act was actually enforced.

The production of wrought-iron nails continued well into the 19th century, but ultimately was reduced to nails for purposes for which the softer cut nails were unsuitable, including horseshoe nails.

Cut

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The slitting mill, introduced to England in , simplified the production of nail rods, but the real first efforts to mechanise the nail-making process itself occurred between and , initially in England and the United States, when various machines were invented to automate and speed up the process of making nails from bars of wrought iron. Also in Sweden in the early s Christopher Polhem produced a nail cutting machine as part of his automated factory.[12] These nails were known as cut nails because they were produced by cutting iron bars into rods; they were also known as square nails because of their roughly rectangular cross section.

The cut-nail process was patented in the U.S. by Jacob Perkins in and in England by Joseph Dyer, who set up machinery in Birmingham. The process was designed to cut nails from sheets of iron, while making sure that the fibres of the iron ran down the nails. The Birmingham industry expanded in the following decades, and reached its greatest extent in the s, after which it declined due to competition from wire nails, but continued until the outbreak of World War I.[13]

Cut nails were one of the important factors in the increase in balloon framing beginning in the s and thus the decline of timber framing with wooden joints.[14] Though still used for historical renovations, and for heavy-duty applications, such as attaching boards to masonry walls, cut nails are much less common today than wire nails.

Wire

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Wire nails are formed from wire. Usually coils of wire are drawn through a series of dies to reach a specific diameter, then cut into short rods that are then formed into nails. The nail tip is usually cut by a blade; the head is formed by reshaping the other end of the rod under high pressure. Other dies are used to cut grooves and ridges. Wire nails were also known as "French nails" for their country of origin.[15] Belgian wire nails began to compete in England in . Joseph Henry Nettlefold was making wire nails at Smethwick by .[13] Over the following decades, the nail-making process was almost completely automated. Eventually the industry had machines capable of quickly producing huge numbers of inexpensive nails with little or no human intervention.[16]

With the introduction of cheap wire nails, the use of wrought iron for nail making quickly declined, as more slowly did the production of cut nails. In the United States, in more steel-wire nails were produced than cut nails. In , 90% of manufactured nails were wire nails. Nails went from being rare and precious to being a cheap mass-produced commodity. Today almost all nails are manufactured from wire, but the term "wire nail" has come to refer to smaller nails, often available in a wider, more precise range of gauges than is typical for larger common and finish nails. Today, many nails are made using the modern rotary principle nail machine, which allows wire feeding, wire cutting and nail head forming to take place in one continuous process of rotating movements. [17]

Materials

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Nails were formerly made of bronze or wrought iron and were crafted by blacksmiths and nailors. These crafts people used a heated square iron rod that they forged before they hammered the sides which formed a point. After reheating and cutting off, the blacksmith or nailor inserted the hot nail into an opening and hammered it.[18] Later new ways of making nails were created using machines to shear the nails before wiggling the bar sideways to produce a shank. For example, the Type A cut nails were sheared from an iron bar type guillotine using early machinery. This method was slightly altered until the s when new heads on the nails' ends were pounded via a separate mechanical nail heading machine. In the s, iron bars were flipped over after each stroke while the cutter set was at an angle. Every nail was then sheared off of taper allowing for an automatic grip of each nail which also formed their heads.[18] Type B nails were created this way. In , 10 percent of the nails that were made in the United States were of the soft steel wire variety and by , steel wire nails overtook iron cut nails as the main type of nails that were being produced. In , wire nails were 90 percent of all nails that were produced.[18]

Today's nails are typically made of steel, often dipped or coated to prevent corrosion in harsh conditions or to improve adhesion. Ordinary nails for wood are usually of a soft, low-carbon or "mild" steel (about 0.1% carbon, the rest iron and perhaps a trace of silicon or manganese). Nails for masonry applications are tempered and have a higher carbon content.[19]

Types

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Different types of nails:
1) roofing
2) umbrella head roofing
3) brass escutcheon pin
4) finish
5) concrete
6) spiral-shank
7) ring-shank (a used, bent "gun" nail, with barbs left over from the tool's feed system) Horseshoe nails Nail-maker's work-bench or anvil in a storeroom of the Black Country Living Museum A capped nail for weather wrap Nails for nail guns

Types of nail include:

Sizes

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Most countries, except the United States, use a metric system for describing nail sizes. A 50 × 3.0 indicates a nail 50 mm long (not including the head) and 3 mm in diameter. Lengths are rounded to the nearest millimetre.

For example, finishing nail* sizes typically available from German suppliers are:

Length, mm Diameter, mm 20 1.2 25 1.4 30 1.6 35 1.6 35 1.8 40 2.0 45 2.2 50 2.2 55 2.2 55 2.5 60 2.5 60 2.8 65 2.8 65 3.1 70 3.1 80 3.1 80 3.4 90 3.4 90 3.8 100 3.8 100 4.2 110 4.2 120 4.2 130 4.6 140 5.5 160 5.5 180 6.0 210 7.0

• Drahtstift mit Senkkopf (Stahl, DIN )

United States penny sizes

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In the United States, the length of a nail is designated by its penny size.

penny
size length, inches length, mm
(nearest) 2d 1 25 3d

1

+

1

&#;

4

33 4d

1

+

1

&#;

2

38 5d

1

+

3

&#;

4

44 6d 2 51 7d

2

+

1

&#;

4

57 8d

2

+

1

&#;

2

64 9d

2

+

3

&#;

4

70 10d 3 76 12d

3

+

1

&#;

4

83 16d

3

+

1

&#;

2

89 20d 4 102 30d

4

+

1

&#;

2

114 40d 5 127 50d

5

+

1

&#;

2

140 60d 6 152

Terminology

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• Box: a wire nail with a head; box nails have a smaller shank than common nails of the same size
• Bright: no surface coating; not recommended for weather exposure or acidic or treated lumber
• Casing: a wire nail with a slightly larger head than finish nails; often used for flooring
• CC or Coated: "cement coated"; nail coated with adhesive, also known as cement or glue, for greater holding power; also resin- or vinyl-coated; coating melts from friction when driven to help lubricate then adheres when cool; color varies by manufacturer (tan, pink, are common)
• Common: a common construction wire nail with a disk-shaped head that is typically 3 to 4 times the diameter of the shank: common nails have larger shanks than box nails of the same size
• Cut: machine-made square nails. Now used for masonry and historical reproduction or restoration
• Duplex: a common nail with a second head, allowing for easy extraction; often used for temporary work, such as concrete forms or wood scaffolding; sometimes called a "scaffold nail"
• Drywall: a specialty blued-steel nail with a thin broad head used to fasten gypsum wallboard to wooden framing members
• Finish: a wire nail that has a head only slightly larger than the shank; can be easily concealed by countersinking the nail slightly below the finished surface with a nail-set and filling the resulting void with a filler (putty, spackle, caulk, etc.)
• Forged: handmade nails (usually square), hot-forged by a blacksmith or nailor, often used in historical reproduction or restoration, commonly sold as collectors items
• Galvanized: treated for resistance to corrosion and/or weather exposure
  • Electrogalvanized: provides a smooth finish with some corrosion resistance
  • Hot-dip galvanized: provides a rough finish that deposits more zinc than other methods, resulting in very high corrosion resistance that is suitable for some acidic and treated lumber;
  • Mechanically galvanized: deposits more zinc than electrogalvanizing for increased corrosion resistance
• Head: round flat metal piece formed at the top of the nail; for increased holding power
• Helix: the nail has a square shank that has been twisted, making it very difficult to pull out; often used in decking so they are usually galvanized; sometimes called decking nails
• Length: distance from the bottom of the head to the point of a nail
• Phosphate-coated: a dark grey to black finish providing a surface that binds well with paint and joint compound and minimal corrosion resistance
• Point: sharpened end opposite the "head" for greater ease in driving
• Pole barn: long shank (

  2

  +

  1

  &#;

  2

  in to 8 in, 6 cm to 20 cm), ring shank (see below), hardened nails; usually oil quenched or galvanized (see above); commonly used in the construction of wood framed, metal buildings (pole barns)
• Ring shank: small directional rings on the shank to prevent the nail from working back out once driven in; common in drywall, flooring, and pole barn nails
• Shank: the body the length of the nail between the head and the point; may be smooth, or may have rings or spirals for greater holding power
• Sinker: these are the most common nails used in framing today; same thin diameter as a box nail; cement coated (see above); the bottom of the head is tapered like a wedge or funnel and the top of the head is grid embossed to keep the hammer strike from sliding off
• Spike: a large nail; usually over 4 in (100 mm) long
• Spiral: a twisted wire nail; spiral nails have smaller shanks than common nails of the same size

In art and religion

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Nails have been used in art, such as the Nail Men&#;a form of fundraising common in Germany and Austria during World War I.

Before the s bocce and pétanque boules were wooden balls, sometimes partially reinforced with hand-forged nails. When cheap, plentiful machine-made nails became available, manufacturers began to produce the boule cloutée&#;a wooden core studded with nails to create an all-metal surface. Nails of different metals and colors (steel, brass, and copper) were used to create a wide variety of designs and patterns. Some of the old boules cloutées are genuine works of art and valued collector's items.

Once nails became cheap and widely available, they were often used in folk art and outsider art as a method of decorating a surface with metallic studs. Another common artistic use is the construction of sculpture from welded or brazed nails.

Nails were sometimes inscribed with incantations or signs intended for religious or mystical benefit, used at shrines or on the doors of houses for protection.[28]

• Roman bronze nails with magical signs and inscriptions, 3rd&#;4th century AD.

• The Iron Roland of Mannheim, an example of

  , an example of Nail Men ().

See also

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References

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Further reading

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• Sichel, Daniel E. (-02). "The Price of Nails since : A Window into Economic Change". Journal of Economic Perspectives. 36 (1): 125&#;150.

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