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I was reading a book on old barns and found out how many nails they used
I mean, I was flipping through this book I got at a yard sale, 'Forgotten Barns of Ohio,' just for fun. It said a big barn built around 1900 could use over 20,000 hand-forged nails, which is wild to think about. That's like a whole lifetime of hammering for one guy, idk. Has anyone else come across a fact about old building methods that just stopped you cold?
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singh.uma7mo ago
Wow, that number is absolutely crazy. It makes you realize how much pure labor went into everything back then. I had a similar moment reading about log cabins, how they'd cut notches by hand and fit everything together without a single nail sometimes. The skill it took is just mind blowing.
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taylor826mo ago
Totally, the amount of hand work is hard to wrap your head around. Read about old timber framing once, where they'd shape massive beams with just axes and adzes. Makes you think Robinwhite is right about the blisters, and that's before we even talk about splinters. The precision needed for those joints, with no power tools, is a completely lost skill set. We'd probably just give up and order a prefab shed now.
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