weird nail I pulled out of an OLD gate post - anybody know anything about old nails?

[Kali]

[MiddleFingerMom]

1. Date nail 1926:

.
.
.
http://facstaff.uindy.edu/~oaks/DateNailInfo.htm#Whatisadatenail
.
.
.

[Kali]

2. ooooo you're fast!

bet you hear that a lot:rofl:

[MiddleFingerMom]

5. I may be fast but I'm short!!!

.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Um...
.
.
.
.
.
...somethin's not right about that.
.
.
.
.
.
Why do I keep having an opportunity to post this picture?
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.

.
.
.
.
.

[Brother Buzz]

3. Was that gate post once a telephone/power pole?

That's where I always see them.

[Kali]

4. probably a railroad tie

been a gate post my whole life

[MiddleFingerMom]

6. That website talks about railroad ties in particular. n/t

[Kali]

7. yeah - sorry to be such a smart ass above (not)

that was actually pretty interesting - more about studying the treatments of the wood than anything "historical" thanks for finding it!

[MiddleFingerMom]

8. The day that you stop being a smart ass towards me...

.
.
.
.
.
.
.
...is the day I start wondering what the hell I've done wrong.
.
.
.

[bluesbassman]

9. Granpappy always said it's much better to be a smartass,

than a dumbass. I took him at his word if you haven't noticed yet. :P

[Crystal Clarity]

13. You folks once had railroad tracks running through that god-forsaken land?

Just kidding. Seriously! I'd give just about anything to be in a warm climate right now!

I find stuff like that from time to time in the weirdest ways. Via some wood from our land for example, I've found home-made nails and the remains of old bullets in the ashpan of the woodstove.

Though most everything is wooded now, people used this land as open farmland many years ago. You can find tons of rock boundary walls in the middle of no-where in the woods here. Wanderlust used to entice this displaced, Jersey-girl to follow them through brambles and bush. On more then a few occasions, I'd find (and recently have found) old house foundations by doing that.

There was a really cool one, not far from my parent's home that I found when I was about 14 or 15. I went there often collecting old bottles and broken pieces of pottery. This was in the late 70's/early 80's. What was really interesting about it was the fact that I was able to get some first-hand info. A 90 something yr old man down at the dead-end of our dirt road remembered the family who once lived there. He said that the father and 6 of the 8 children had died of "consumption" (tuberculosis) in a period of 3 years around 1905 to 1910-ish. (He was a teen/young adult at the time)

He spoke about how his father used to bring this poor family food and other necessities when no one else dared to go near them. Kind of a heartbreaking story made even clearer by the fact that it was once (probably) a decent, working piece of farmland. I found the well that someone had the foresight to cover with what had become by then, rotting wooden planks. But more telling was the apple trees and a few remaining old Maple trees among mostly overgrown alder and other crap wood.

The old man said that the mother and her 2 remaining children abandoned the place and went to some southern Maine town to live w/relatives and knew nothing more beyond that.

Whoa! Sorry to go on and on!...

[Kali]

26. hey! just because we don't have so many trees you can't find a freaking LAKE

doesn't mean it's god-forsaken land!:rofl: (of course we don't have any lakes to even look for, so there is that)

our state lease land has several miles of track running through it, in fact we have a copy of an unsigned contract from 1915 with the Southern Pacific to deliver (a huge amount of) water over 4 miles of 4 inch pipe to a siding. Most of that pipe is still there and my grandfather remembered the steam pump his father had for the job, but there is no way there was that much water available so I wish I knew what the signed contract ended up being because it was still way more water than we have here now.

All the corrals on the place were built with rail road ties and I still manage to get some when they do replacements, though it is harder now because they pre-sell to some contractor for landscaping use/ retail now. Also a lot of the wood is just crap compared to the old stuff (oak!)

History disappears if somebody doesn't look, record, or remember. Entropy works on information just as much as it does on physical things.

[Crystal Clarity]

32. HeHe! I bet I'll never live that one down!

:blush:

About that contract- Is there a way to maybe sleuth around in Southern Pacific archives or whatever? Or maybe someone somewhere has researched the company for historical benefit? Perhaps the county has some info. I don't know, grasping at straws here, but it seems to me that finding obscure info like that may be easier now with the added benefit of the internet. Would you be able to get that water if you found the signed contract?

Too bad I can't donate some of our springtime water to you. I happily would if I could. :-)

You are so lucky to have the benefit of several generations of your family having owned your land. Knowing the history of it makes it extra special. Despite my joking, it really is gorgeous. I loved the pics you posted a month or so ago of the cattle in that field of tall grass. The winter-pic one.

Yeah, railroad ties can come in handy for a lot of things. We lucked out big time getting some for next to nothing because a friend of ours won a contracting bid to tear out about half a mile of old, unused railroad tracks for the benefit of the snowmobile club's trails. We used it for some terracing. What we got done looks great, but we never did finish that project. That was like 5 or 6 years ago!

[MrScorpio]

10. That's the Rare 26 Penny Nail

It should fetch you quite a haul at an auction

[trackfan]

11. Could that be 9d = nine penny

d=denarii

[Gormy Cuss]

36. 9d= 2 3/4 inches long.

Kali can test that theory. : )

[Gold Metal Flake]

12. I learned something about an old thing in this thread.

And I love it when that happens!

:toast:

[MiddleFingerMom]

14. It's not THAT old, so just STOP IT... STOP IT... STOP IT!!!!!!

.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.

.
.
.

[Gold Metal Flake]

17. Old. Very old.

From the NW corner of this very old thing.
http://www.bibleplaces.com/images/Great%20Pyramid,%2089-22tb.jpg

So did Kali get any special powers when she pulled the nail out?

[Glassunion]

15. The last "old nail" I had anything to do with was when that cougar picked me up in the bar.

What were we talking about?

[MiddleFingerMom]

16. Was she hammered? n/t

[Gold Metal Flake]

18. Yeah, on rusty nails.

[MiddleFingerMom]

19. I certainly hope you didn't spike her drink. n/t

[Gold Metal Flake]

20. No. But I was a gentleman and drove her home.

[MiddleFingerMom]

22. "Americans dream of Gypsy eyes and Gypsy knives and Gypsy thighs that pound & pound & pound...

.
.
.
...and African appendages that almost reach the ground."
.
.
...from the song with perhaps the coolest title EVER (and maybe
my favorite song on my favorite album of his), Randy Newman's
"Sigmund Freud's Impersonation of Albert Einstein in America".
.
.
.

[Gold Metal Flake]

21. Fun with an old nail!

http://hackedgadgets.com/2007/03/22/rusty-nail-led-night-light/

[Kali]

28. see this is why I can't deal with electricity...

what is all that extra crap? why not just wire the LED to the battery?



:shrug: :rofl:

[TreasonousBastard]

31. But if you need 3.5 volts to drive the LED...

that would be a very cheap step-up transformer.

And it has current limiting so you don't blow up the LED.

(You could, of course, just use 3 batteries and a resistor, but what's the fun in that?)

[Gold Metal Flake]

33. The voltage of the 1.5v AA battery is too low, so...

...an oscillator circuit was built to boost the voltage. The nail is used as the core of an induction coil (similar in it's action to an automotive ignition coil). Props to yer mad 'Shop skillz.

[Kali]

37. voltage, induction, coil, tranformer, resistance, OSCILLATO???!!! (never even heard of that) amps...

it's like some language I can't hear - my brain shuts down

I can wire stereo speakers and maybe rewire a lamp. That's about it.


see, like my version of that light - I suspect if I actually comprehend electricity a lot of things I have ranch-rigged around here are suddenly going to stop working!:rofl: It's just better if I don't know.

[Gold Metal Flake]

38. Naw, just wire it all up like in the picture.

Twist the ends, don't even bother to solder. Try it.



On edit: I don't mean you should do this, of course. Do something you enjoy.

[blogslut]

23. Perhaps a Date Nail

http://fantasticprices.com/DateNail/Railroad.htm

BRIEF HISTORY OF DATE NAILS

Western Europe suffered a timber shortage much earlier than North America, which is why railroads in France, England and Germany were chemically treating ties long before companies here. Date nails were in use in France by 1870, possibly as early as 1859. Wherever treated ties come into use, date nails are not far behind. Railroads need a way to monitor their investment in treating, and date nails became the most common method of this record keeping.

When North American railroads began to use treated ties in large numbers at the end of the 1800's, it was not known which chemicals, treatment methods or woods were most economical. They needed some method of keeping track of the lives of ties, so like their European counterparts they decided to mark them....

[orleans]

24. i know old nails can be rusty

have you had a recent tetanus shot?
if not, i would not recommend stepping on the nail

[ashling]

25. I don't know, but

it looks like a pencil to me :shrug:

[Kali]

27. ...

:spank:

[Swede]

29. They used to burn down old buildings to retrieve the nails.

I read that somewhere.

[Gold Metal Flake]

34. Back in the days when blacksmiths made them by hand one at a time, I guess. n/m

[Kali]

40. I was wondering if that would be a good way to recover the big heavy

bolts and hinges on some busted up gates that I want to reuse (expensive!) but the husband said it probably wasn't a good idea (what does he know, he's a stone mason? - heh heh)

[Lucian]

30. Interesting.

In an archaeological dig I participated in last summer, the class was finding square-head nails. They were later dated to around the nineteenth century, which was pretty cool.

[MorningGlow]

35. We have those in our house (1867)

I love finding them. Some are pretty darn huge.

[Kali]

39. I find those around once in a while, too.

there is a LOT of old rusty metal around here - and we still use most of it:rofl:

[jobycom]

41. I hear they are tough. nt

[Kali]

42. kick for Ptah

:P

[Ptah]

43. Thanks, Kali. Looks like a fine example of smithing.

:thumbsup: