This didn’t seem worthy of GQ, as it’s not all that important.
We bought an older, neglected house and we’re trying to put it back to its glory. It isn’t clear whether it was built in 1930 or 1940, since various documents have different dates. Nonetheless, it’s definitely of that vintage.
I’ve now pulled up three floors, two carpet and one linoleum (the real stuff, from the time the house was built) to reveal plywood subfloors. I hadn’t realized that plywood was in common use for that back then (I did know that its invention predates 1930).
Here’s the interesting thing: All the subfloors are secured with cut nails. I thought they were out of common use by this point, and a little googling says wire nails were the norm by the teens.
Any thoughts on why I’m finding these anachronisms? Just some crusty old builder who don’t like these newfangled nails (but embraces the Devil’s plywood)?
There are other oddities in this house- what about yours?
As an aside, I was also surprised that cut nails are still readily available at places like Lowes.
‘Cut nails’ are machine made nails resembling old wrought iron nails. They were certainly available back then and whoever built the house probably just had a lot of them available. They had been in use since the dawn of the Industrial Revolution, there are old mills near me that used to make them all the way back in the 18th century. They still had to compete with wrought iron nails at the time in most locations because nails were the bread and butter business of blacksmiths who were basically the hardware stores in ye olde days. Blacksmiths would have spent most of their time making nails instead of horse shoes, shovels, axes, and the like. Wire nails have to be made from steel so it took a little while for quality steel to become available at a price suitable for the market.
My house was started in the late 30s and I’ve found a few cut nails in places. I’ve found just about every kind of nail in places around this structure because any place one or two nails would do the job there are at least 5. Even the wire nails are very old and heavy. If they clinched one of those suckers (bent it over) you would not easily bend it back like modern nails made out of barely adequate steel.
My home, built in 1958, has cut nails securing the hardwood flooring.
I hadn’t even considered that this was very old-fashioned, figuring that it must be the appropriate nail for hand nailing hardwood flooring.
The house isn’t anything special, made with cheaper materials at the time. For example, the walls are 3/8" Sheetrock instead of the more modern and durable 1/2". It’s not like those nails were used for some special purpose; they were likely what any builder of tract homes would use in 1958.
I’m repeating myself (I do that a lot these days). One day I replaced 6 wall light switches and discovered that all 6 were from different manufacturers, of obviously different ages and materials (at least one had cotton insulation on interior wires). The house was built in 1942 and the builder must have had to really scrounge to get the switches during the war (which had begun for Canada in 1939).
That would be because, IIUC, they are the proper nails.
Round nails have more of a tendency to split wood while cut nails literally cut the fibers of the wood and don’t cause splits.
Splits in tongue-in-groove hardwood boards joints are something to be avoided at all costs.
Just my two cents, I’ve installed quite a few, and had no issues whatsoever using the staples. I know some like the cleats (which are a bit like a cut nail), but staples seem just fine for me.
That said, I don’t know how recent an invention the flooring staple is.
I can’t really see in the picture, and maybe it doesn’t matter anyway. The staples I use are skinny, squarish, and have ‘cut’ points, but on plywood there is no such thing as aligning the cut with the wood grain, because plywood is made with cross-grain layers.
The OP was talking about the sub-flooring, not the hardwood flooring itself. Flooring nails and staples have different requirements. Largely because the heads get buried, cut nails have more holding power along their length than common nails which can easily ‘pop’. That may be why they used them. Modern construction would use ring shank nails or some other kind with more ‘grip’, or even screws.