MECHANICS AND USEFUL ARTS. 45 



WICKERSHAM'S NAIL MACHINE. 



Before the year 1807, nail-making was a very slow and labori- 

 ous process, each nail being cut from the bar by shears, and then 

 screwed into a vice where the head was struck on by a hammer. 



About this time, Mr. Jesse Reed, of Massachusetts, invented a 

 machine by which the cutting and heading of tlie nails were 

 performed by one continuous operation in the same machine. 

 This Reed INIachine, though it cut but one nail at a time, has, with 

 but slight alteration, been the only nail-machine in use up to the 



present date. 



By a reasonable estimate, Mr. Reed, by his machme, reduced 

 the cost of cutting and heading nails to one-tenth that of the 

 process used befoT-e his invention, and those who availed them- 

 selves of rights under his patent have thereby realized large 



fortunes. -.^r•^^^ 



The machine now brought to public notice by Mr. Wdliam 

 Wickersham cuts the nail with head ready formed at less than 

 one-tenth of the cost by the machines now in use, and at the 

 same time it produces a nail which, from being pointed like a 

 chisel, and gradually tapered its whole length, is much better for 

 use, being more easily driven and holding much more firmly, as 

 it breakslhe grain of the wood so little that it clings tightly and 

 firmly the whole length of the nail. 



The universal plan has hitherto been to make the plate from 

 which the nails are cut wide enough for the length of the nail, 

 and then commence cutting from one end, and continuing the 

 operation until it is all cut into nails, the machine cutting only 

 one at a time. 



In the Wickersham Machine a sheet of metal from 20 to 25 

 inches square is placed, and a series of nails cut from its edge at 

 each stroke of the knives. To do this, there are two series of 

 cutters, viz., bed and moving cutters, so arranged that by shifting 

 the nail-sheet laterally the distance equal to the length of two 

 nails, each time a series of nails is cut, the nails being alternately 

 reversed as to heads and points. The motions of the machine 

 are reduced to their greatest simplicity, there being only three 

 motions, viz., the crank-motion of the cutter jaw, the cam-motion 

 for shifting the nail-plate, and the feed-motion which moves the 

 nail-sheet 'towards the cutters each time it is shifted and a series 

 of nails cut. 



In cutting half-inch patent brads or shoe-nails from a twenty- 

 inch plate, "there is a series of 40 nails cut at each stroke of the 

 knives, or 160 per second, the machine driving the knives four 

 times per second; of patent brads from three-eighths to two 

 inches long, and shoe-nails of all sizes, one machine will cut 

 3,600 Uds. per day. Of the larger size nails, say six to twelve- 

 penny nails, one machine will cut 5,000 lbs., and of ship-spikes, 

 of one quarter to three-quarter lbs. each, one machine will cut 

 25,000 lbs. per day often hours. 



From the best authority it appears that there are 3,000,000 kegs 

 of nails made annually in the United States; of these three- 



