Old Im Bag Of Nails

[Clay Edgin]

The guy who I practice highland games stuff with (and who certified me on the 3) traded me an old bag of IM nails that he had hardly used for some metalworking that I’m going to do soon. He had only bent one white nail and the rest of the bag is still in tact. This bag is from around 1999, but the interesting thing is how big the white and green nails are. Porkbone measured the yellow and blue nails and they came out at .248” thick (roughly 1/4") which is no surprise, but the green and white nails are .240” thick! The whites feel like yellows because they are the same length and almost identical thickness, and the green’s are much harder than the blues because they are 5” long.

I spent a few minutes last night bending one of the green nails and was surprised how tough it was the whole way. Harder than my 60d’s, and probably close to a Grade 5 bolt in strength. Actually, according to Terry Duty’s yield chart, a 5” cut yellow nail is only a hair weaker than a Grade 5 (his chart says that a cut yellow bent at 345lbs and the Grade 5 bent to 57 degrees with the same weight). Next workout, I am going to try a Grade 5 again and see if I can get it without blowing out my shoulder or anything. If I get this 6” Grade 5, then it’s time to move on to the 5.5”, and then on to the red! Yeah, like it’s just that easy….

I can’t stop bending! I’m supposed to be focusing on grippers but these nails keep jumping into my hands!

[RSW]

Yeah, I heard they used to be a lot tougher using softer 1/4" stock for the Yellow and White, instead of 3/16". They really should have just added one or 3/16" stock nails instead of replacing the white and Yellow with weaker stuff.

Tom Black used to consider the old blues an elite bend, although easier then a grade 5 bolt.

[strongmitts]

Clay, I had an old bag of IronMind nails and many of the nail strengths were weird. The whites tested at the exact same strengths as my blues (260lbs), and some of the green tested in the 230lb range. The first bend I made was a yellow nail. It was the easiest one in the batch. Anyway, because I couldn't bend the white nail when I first got the bag I thought I was a major panz and put the nails up in the closet for several years. I recently got another bag of nails and was shocked to see what the whites and greens looked like. They are like coat hangers compared to what I had before. In my new bag the yellows and blues tested at 230lbs and 285lbs respectively.