Bronze nail i think

[titanium]

I think it's bronze but why do much effort for a nail

[jtalbot0001]

I'm glad you have posted this as I have found a few of these and thought just the same, why go to so much effort making the nail in bronze/copper unless the item being nailed was very important?

[titanium]

It's a lovely bit of craftsmanship gone into it ... Every edge is perfect ...
Nice object ;-)

[Val Beechey]

Weren't ships nails hand crafted from copper or bronze ??  Makes sense, they didn't want them to rust, did they.

Val

[bristolminelab]

As they do not rust used in roofing etc

[Mike]

copper and bronze nails were and still are used in ship building and houses , especially when using oak , its acidic and will eat away at steel or iron nails and as val said they don't rust

[Radnor Bandit (Ian)]

As they do not rust used in roofing etc

The local church was recently reroofed (stone tiles), I had permission to have the old battening for firewood and ended up with a bucket full of them.

[davethepaint]

Found a number of these on an Anglesey beach, there was a number of different lengths some about four inches long had a washer added to one end and hammered over to hold two pieces of wood together. Some about 1 3/4 " held the sacraficial Timber sheathing onto the oak hull and lastly some about 3/4" held the copper sheathing onto the vessel well that's the information I manged to glean of tinternet. Cheers Dave.

[Christoph1945]

                                      I have a number of copper maritime nails of varying sizes, along with copper roves, that I have been finding on beaches. I even have a small section of two pieces of wood that are kept together with several maritime nails. It is interesting to hear that such nails were also used in roofing and building work.

                                      As far as I know; the ancient Greeks, Romans, and modern boat builders all used copper nails in boat construction. It would be interesting to learn how to id the ages of such items.  

[Radnor Bandit (Ian)]

I think the older ship nails would have been cletched over to form more of a rivit , the Vikings certainly used this process on their boats. These have been found in excavations.

[Christoph1945]

                            All of my maritime nail finds are rather on the small side, but some 50% of them have been clenched. As far as I know; modern boat builders still use the same, or similar, method of clenched copper nails in the construction of their boats. As you so rightly say; it is perhaps better to think of them as rivets!