April, 2007
Nail Placement?
by Michael McNutt
Bring Forging Contests and Everyday Work a Little Bit Closer
It’s becoming hard to aid newcomers in shoe making,
and nail placement seems to be a big controversy. I tell and show them
one thing and they go to contests or clinics and they are told something
else.
Well, I guess we all deal with opinions. However, I think it safe to say
that most farriers agree that a nail should start in the white line and
exit through the hoof wall. If a nail starts in the hoof wall and exits
the hoof wall, there is a real good chance of cracking and later breaking
of the hoof wall. If a nail is started in the sole there is, of course,
chances of invading sensitive tissue, "sore horse."
Maybe the difference in opinion is the location of the white line, so
how we trim horses and dress hoof walls affects where we punch nail holes.
There is also a difference in discussion between the ground surface and
hoof surface of the shoe. Example, if somebody said, "the nails should
be punched in the center of the web," do they mean the groung surface
or the hoof surface? A toe nail is pitched a lot more than a heel nail.
Correct nail pattern should be judged, not in terms of coarse or fine
unless there is a horses hoof involved. At shoeing competitions where
there are specimen shoes and the judge is having a tough decision between
1st, 2nd, and 3rd, I assume the nail placement closest to his or her specimen
shoe should win. For the sake of the article, the phrase correct nail
pattern means where the nail holes are located in the shoe. Nail hole
placement or position will mean how coarse or fine.
I have difficulty sorting through the rules of thumb or in-general statements
that I have been taught. Just to name a few. In horseshoeing school the
first rule of thumb in making shoes was, punch the heel nail in the middle
of the web and graduate inward or courser towards the toe nail. In a forging
clinic I was taught to punch the toe nail in the center of the web and
graduate outward or finer to the heel nail. In other clinics I have been
told to punch or crease a shoe the same from toe to heel on the ground
surface. Then pitch the toe nail to match the hoof wall and punch the
heel nail straight up and down. Turn the shoe over to the foot surface
the toe nail will be courser than the heel nail. I have also been told
that by choosing the correct size steel your nails will be in the middle
of the web. There again, do they mean foot surface or ground surface.
The trouble with this is I see small feet like 00 to 0 with heavy hoof
walls. I’m not going to use 7/8" or 1" on feet that small.
The other reason I don’t like this is because sometimes I like to
add traction to a horse. It can be done by using narrow web shoe stock
on bigger feet. Sometimes the nail holes need to be extremely course to
be in the white line, but there will still be a correct nail pattern.
I got tired of hand making shoes and fitting up a well forged shoe just
to discover my nail holes were to fine or course. I started trimming the
foot. Then I dress the hoof walls straight from hair line to ground. Then
take the size steel I was going to use and lay the end if it on the hoof
wall and white line at the toe nail area and see exactly where to punch
the toe nail. In learning to make hand made shoes, the correct nail pattern
is a very difficult thing to acheive. In normal where the medial side
is a little more upright and the lateral side a little more sloping and
we are looking at the foot surface of the shoe. It may be safe to say
that a toe nail should be courser than a heel nail and the lateral branch
could be slightly courser than the medial branch. This to me establishes
a correct nail pattern.
How course or fine? Our correct nail pattern is more of a habit, that
is dictated to us by how we trim feet, dress hoof walls, and fit shoes.
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