Nails and Screws

Whether it’s nailing together a couple of pieces of timber for an outdoor garden, screwing a hinge to a door frame or using nuts and bolts to put a BBQ together, it pays to have a basic understanding of the different types of fixings available.
 

Nails

Nails are probably one of the first things that come to mind when the term ‘fixings’ is used. There is a huge range of Paslode nails available at Mitre 10.

Material
For most applications, you will have the choice of either bright steel or galvanised nails. It’s essential you know which ones you need, especially if working on an exterior project.
 
Bright steel nails are manufactured without any form of protection and are cheaper but will quickly start to rust in an exterior environment. They are perfectly suited to interior jobs like wall and floor framing right through to smaller jobs such as shelves, chests and many other weekend projects.  
 
Exceptions to this “rule of thumb” are in wet areas of your house like bathrooms, kitchens and laundries. In these cases the more protected electro-galvanised or hot-dipped galvanised should be considered.  Failure to use protected nails in wet areas may result in unsightly timber staining.
 
Galvanised nails are coated with zinc, which protects the nail from corrosion, making them the perfect choice for outdoor work or interior wet areas.
 
Also available are stainless steel and silicon bronze nails, which are highly corrosion resistant and can be used in almost any situation. These are often used when working near the coast where prevalent conditions can cause the corrosion of other nails due to the amount of salt in the air.
 
Size
Nails can range in size from 150mm long down to less than 20mm, depending on which section of the store you are looking in and what you require them for.
 
Panel pins:Used for smaller jobs such as cabinet making or fixing thin sheets of material in place, they can range in size from 19mm to 50mm long.
 
Standard nails:Available in lengths of 60mm, 75mm, 90mm and 100mm and should be selected based on the thickness of the material you are working with. For larger framing jobs, a mix of 75mm and 100mm nails can be used.
 
Galvanised nails:Are available in the same size as standard nails plus 125mm and 150mm spikes, mainly due to the larger sections of timber that are often used in landscaping and outdoor work.
 
To determine the correct length nail shank you should select, remember this simple rule of thumb – 1/3 to 2/3.  That is, 1/3 of the nail length will pass through the material you are nailing and 2/3 of the nail will be embedded in the timber you are nailing to. To calculate this, measure the top timber thickness and simply multiply by three to get the appropriate nail length for the application.

Head The two most common head types used in construction are jolt head and flat head but there are a couple of other types available as well. Flat head nails have a flat, circular head and are great for general-purpose tasks. However, because of the head, they are really only suitable for jobs where the nail will be seen afterwards or where it will be covered with other material.   Jolt head nails have a head that is only slightly larger than the shank of the nail itself, allowing it to be punched below the surface of the timber where it can be covered with filler.   There are also clouts, which are shorter nails with a larger flat head and are usually used for fixing panel products to walls and ceilings. In many cases, manufacturers will make clouts to suit their own products but there are clouts available in the Paslode range from 19mm to 40mm long.

Shank
While it may seem obvious, the shank is the part between the point and the head of the nail and this is the section that provides the holding power due to the friction of the shank on the material it’s fixed into.
 
The larger the nail, the thicker the shank; providing more hold strength. However, there is also more chance of splitting timber when using larger nails, so keep this in mind when selecting nails for your project.

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Screws

Although more expensive per unit than nails, screws do have a considerable advantage – their threaded shaft provides considerably greater holding power than nails. There is a huge range of Atlas screws to choose from and it’s vital you know which ones are suitable for the job you are working on.
 
Material
Screws in the Atlas range are coated in a number of different materials but the most common materials in your Mitre 10 store are zinc or zinc chromate. It’s easy to tell the difference between the two by the colour; zinc is silver and is designed for interior/protected use, while zinc chromate has a distinctive yellow colour and is more durable. For use outdoors it is advisable to purchase stainless steel screws.
 
Thread
Now this is where things can start to get a little complicated. Atlas screws have a number of different thread options and each is designed for a specific range of tasks.
 
Standard wood screws:Have a ‘normal’ thread and are designed for fixing two different sections of timber together – but these screws have a ‘wedge’ shape and can sometimes split timber, even if a pilot hole is drilled first.
 
Twinfast woodscrews:Designed for use with particleboard and soft timbers and have parallel twin threads for greater holding power and quicker installation. They also have a parallel core diameter for the majority of the screw length, which reduces the likelihood of splitting the timber.
 
SUREFIX screws:Hardened, self-drilling and countersinking wood screws with a hardened point, meaning no pilot hole is required. They have an extra coarse thread and rib on the underside of the head to allow them to self-countersink.
 
Hinge screws:Similar to SUREFIX screws, but without the self-countersinking ribs underneath the head. They are self-drilling and designed to sit flush into hinges or other fittings.
 
Head
There are three distinct shapes to a standard screw head - countersunk, round and dome (or oval).
 
Countersunk screws are easily the most common and are designed so the top of the head either finishes flush with the timber, or slightly below it, allowing it to be covered with filler. Round head screws have a round head, but the underside is flat. These are used for fixing sheet materials where the sheet is too hard to allow the screw to be countersunk. Dome head screws are a bit of a combination of both, with a round head but also countersunk and are often using for fixing hardware or door furniture.
 
Just as important when selecting the head of the screw is the type of ‘drive’ each has. Not too long ago, the two most obvious were slotted heads or Phillips heads, but now you can also get Pozidrive, Robertson, Torx and hex head screws – each requires a different driver to insert or remove them.
 
With slotted screws, the tip of the screwdriver should fit snugly into the slot and not slip around when turned. Pozidrive and Phillips have similar X-shaped heads. Phillips head screws are designed so the driver will ride out of the head (also known as ‘camming’ out) when under strain to prevent them being over-tightened.
 
Pozidrive screws are differentiated by the second set of markings set 45 degrees from the main machined cross in the head and offer more resistance to camming out or driver slippage.
 
Robertson (square) heads are really useful and have become more popular and widely used in the last few years. Although they look like just a square, both the hole and the driver tool are tapered, which makes them user friendly because the screws tend to retain themselves on the driver bit when being inserted. The shape of the head also allows considerable force to be applied when driving them without the driver suffering from cam out.
Hex head screws have a hexagonal shaped recess and can be removed or inserted using a hex key or hexagonal shaped driver bit. Torx heads are more common in other industries, such as automotive and electrical.


Size
Screws are measured by length and gauge (thickness). Length is fairly self-explanatory, however, it is useful to remember that screws are available in both metric and imperial measurements.
 

Imperial - inches	Metric (approx) - mm
½”	13mm
5/8”	16mm
¾”	19mm
1”	25mm
1 1/8”	28mm
1 ¼”	32mm
1 ½”	38mm
1 5/8”`	41mm
1 ¾”	44mm
2”	51mm
2 ½”	64mm
3”	76mm
4”	102mm

 
The second measurement refers to gauge, and this isn’t such an easy one to work out. Josh George from Steel and Tube, the suppliers of Atlas brand screws, says this is an area that can often cause confusion.
 
“Most DIYers struggle with what the gauge actually refers to, so most work on the very rough rule that a screw gauge equals roughly half itself in millimetres – an 8g (gauge) screw is just over 4mm and a 10g just under 5mm,” he says. “However, this rough rule comes unstuck when working with the smaller and larger gauges.”
 
A conversion chart for screw gauges:

Screw gauge (g)	Shank size (mm)
4	2.74
5	3.10
6	3.45
7	3.81
8	4.17
9	4.52
10	4.88
12	5.59
14	6.30

 
 
Pilot holes are often critical to the performance of screws, but these also depend on the type of screw being used and the type of material they are being used on.
 
The team at Mitre 10 have a huge amount of knowledge about the world of screws and nails and how to choose the right one for your project.