We were talking around job site and I wondered whether I had hammered (okay and shot) my millionth nail yet. How many nails are in an average say 2000sq.ft house ? We guessed maybe 40-50 ,000 incl. frame /roofing/interiors . After 30 years I may have missed my golden nail celebration.
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so go for the ten millionth celebration....
Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming
WOW!!! What a Ride!
Forget the primal scream, just ROAR!!!
Pretty sure I have.
Used to make pallets, there are 72 in a 40x48 GMA and I made 720 a day for months on end, among others.
even got paid by the nail. It was .011CENTS PER nail. Some pallets paid more, some less. They did that so you'd never average more than say 10 bucks an hour..either start shorting you on lumber, or make short runs that required down time to set up the machine.
If you count ALL fastners, geeze louise, I KNOW I'm well past a million.
Spheramid Enterprises Architectural Woodworks
Repairs, Remodeling, Restorations
"If Brains was lard, you couldn't grease much of a pan"
Jed Clampitt
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Was that with an air nailer or a hammer? Either way it's a lot of pallets to make in a day.Scott.
well for big runs like an 18 wheeler load ( 720) we used a Campbell nailer. Basically a machine with movable chucks and driver rods that nails the whole stringer ( 2x4 notched) in one fell swoop. The machine has chains with dogs that hold the 2x4's you and another guy slap on the 1x4 and 1x6 at the right places and BOTH smack a GO button...then it's Chunk, chunk, chunk and the bottom is nailed, then you flip the pallet, and slap the wood on, slap the buttons and chunk, chunk chunk again, the top is nailed.
From there it goes to a stacker and the next set of 2x4s awaits you..all in about 45 seconds. Extremely fast and tiring slinging wet oak all day.
Small runs are made either by a different type of machine, a Doig, or jigged on tables and gun nailed.
Spheramid Enterprises Architectural Woodworks
Repairs, Remodeling, Restorations
"If Brains was lard, you couldn't grease much of a pan"Jed Clampitt
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Edited 8/1/2009 2:14 pm ET by Sphere
Used to make pallets, there are 72 in a 40x48 GMA and I made 720 a day for months on end, among others.
even got paid by the nail. It was .011CENTS PER nail. Some pallets paid more, some less. They did that so you'd never average more than say 10 bucks an hour..
72X720x.011/8 = 71.28/hr
72x720x.011/12 = 47.52/hr
Something don't add up with your numbers. That's 1.5 pallets every minute with no breaks in an eight hour day. Not surprizing with automation but then you ain't pounding nails either. Might as well just count button pushes.
Edited 8/2/2009 3:14 am ET by TomW
.011 cents per nail should equal .00011 dollars per nail. Unfortunately, the math is still screwed up with this change.
True.
Prolly missed a zero, more like .0011 cents, its been 30+ yrs, can't remember everything.
Yeah that was it
.oo11 x 72=.0792 cents per pallet
.0792 x 720= 57.024$ per DAY
57.024 / 8 = 7.12$ per hour
90 pallets per hour is very easy with a nailing machine and two good guys.Spheramid Enterprises Architectural Woodworks
Repairs, Remodeling, Restorations
"If Brains was lard, you couldn't grease much of a pan"Jed Clampitt
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Gotcha.
Given all those years roofing composition shingles, cedars, and then slowing down to framing and trims work, I must be up well over five million.Should I count the three I drove through my fingers? Do I get extra credit for those ones? What about all that demo work and the nails I have removed? Do I subtract for those? I must have a million questions and only 61,582 answers
Welcome to the Taunton University of Knowledge FHB Campus at Breaktime. where ... Excellence is its own reward!
I must be up well over five million.
Shoot, you've got 61,000+ posts on BT. If we count key strokes as nails, you've probably got more like twenty million.
and I definitely recall leaving a couple of my own fingernails behind on jobs, can I count those in the total?
Welcome to the Taunton University of Knowledge FHB Campus at Breaktime. where ... Excellence is its own reward!
My thumb has phantom throb going, right now. Lost that nail a few times.
I have another appendage that gets a phantom throb occasionally.
Welcome to the Taunton University of Knowledge FHB Campus at Breaktime. where ... Excellence is its own reward!
But can you drive nails with it.
Don't tempt him.... I don't even want to hear about it..
Like a chevy toyota forda rock
we are driven
quality is job one
Welcome to the Taunton University of Knowledge FHB Campus at Breaktime. where ... Excellence is its own reward!
I have another appendage that gets a phantom throb occasionally.
Lemme guess. It's early August so it must be bikini season up east.
He's talking about his foot -- he keeps dropping his beer mug on it.
As I stood before the gates I realized that I never want to be as certain about anything as were the people who built this place. --Rabbi Sheila Peltz, on her visit to Auschwitz
".011CENTS PER nail."
Man, that works out to almost 8¢ per pallet.
You must be rich!
Cool! ;-)Mike HennessyPittsburgh, PAEverything fits, until you put glue on it.
Oh yeah!
And if a pallet had say 100 nails, guess what? The rate per nail went down. Fewer nails it went up.
I think "down time" ( off piece rate for maint. or out of lumber) was 5 bucks an hour back then.
But actually I loved that place, it was a neighbor who was one of the owners, and I started out in the saw room and worked my way up to the nailing machines, I got a great education in the processes, the materials, the machines. At that time, it seemed like a good money maker for them, we had expansion going on constantly and employed about 40 guys.Spheramid Enterprises Architectural Woodworks
Repairs, Remodeling, Restorations
"If Brains was lard, you couldn't grease much of a pan"Jed Clampitt
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Have a black nail celebration instead.
When I used to hang drywall with nails, the two of us would go through a 50# box every day. That's a lot of nails.
So let's see...averaging 100+ 12' boards per day @~50 nails per board is 5000nails/day, 25,000/wk, 1,250,000/yr for two guys.
Of course I've only hung drywall as a steady diet occasionally but still, having seldom used a nail gun during my first twenty years in the trade, I'm sure that my number of hand driven nails is in the millions.
And if the fingers of my off hand could talk, they'd be typing a story about how many times I missed the nail.
:-)
you need to keep better track.
Im on 2 million 300thousand 567, take off 20000 for bent nails, 45000 for nails i have dropped, 5000 for nails i put in my pouch and they just disappeared, 324 i found in my tires, 67000 my kids stole to build tree forts, 350000 for nails left in the back of my pickup that rusted into a cannon ball shape, 3000 for nails fired at seagulls and painters,add 56 homemade forged cut nails i stole from Piffin,56000 gal vinized nails stuck together i threw in the neighbors driveway, 23000 nails found in the washing machine even after i double checked.
bobbys, brownbagg, MrT and a host of other comedians keep my laughin' jag going on all the time.
These guys are part of the reason I'm so behind on everything by making me come back here over and over for laughs and giggles.
Y'all stop now, ya hear! STOP!
Holy ####! Piffins really IS at 61,000+ posts and I'm approaching half that!
damn but that's some scary thinking stuff right there.
Edited 8/2/2009 3:59 pm ET by rez
50,000 nails per house would be 200 houses if you sunk all the nails. I think my math is right. I don't think in 37 years I have a million nails. Alot of days in last ten years I haven't used a single nail.
"Alot of days in last ten years I haven't used a single nail." LOL, where did I put that hammer last anyways?
Welcome to the Taunton University of Knowledge FHB Campus at Breaktime. where ... Excellence is its own reward!
50,000 x 20 = 1,000,000
I'm probably no where close. Every other one I pull out of my bag has the head on the wrong end so I got walk around to the other side of the house to use it!
Did I tell you about the time the boss got mad at us for trying to measure a telephone pole. Bobby Joe was up top with the 100' tape Billy Joe was trying to catch the tape and I was trying to hold the pole steady. He through a fit and wanted to know why we didn't just measure it on the ground. Heck we knew how long it was we needed to know how TALL it was.