| To keep a board from splitting when you pound a nail in, flatten the end of the nail by by setting the head of the nail on a solid surface and tapping the tip gently with your hammer. Eliminating the point causes the wood fiber to be crushed as it goes in rather than completely moving aside reducing the outward pressure on the board. While this helps quite a bit you may find that when nailing at the very edge of a board you still may want to drill a pilot hole smaller than the diameter of the nail. Chris, from WA, entered 1999-12-18 |
