Today's discovery, sorta on topic
Bill Houghton, Sebastopol, CA
>This is about nails - which are driven by hammers, so it's sort of on topic.
For years, I've read descriptions of "casing nails" in the classic carpentry/woodworking books, but, at least around here, never seen them in stores or in the wild. In the pictures, they always looked remarkably like finishing nails.
Today, removing trim from the doorway from kitchen to laundry, I found my first casing nails, and, indeed, they are different from finishing nails.
In the picture below, the casing nail is in the center, with a finishing nail to its right. The casing nail head is larger (though still smaller than a box or common nail's), and bugle-shaped, which would provide more holding power in casing than a finishing nail's, while still leaving a hole small enough to fill easily. Interestingly, the head shape on a modern trim-head screw (left in the photo) is almost identical - demonstrating that a good idea resurfaces in the next generation.
Now, if I could figure out where to find them new...