It takes dexterity to do what Roy Nixon does for a living. Amid the abrasive clap of the machinery that whirls all around him, Nixon, a feeder for Tremont Nail Co. in Wareham, Mass., clutches a wooden pole by its end. At its other end is a steel plate. Slowly at first, Nixon pushes the pole into the grips of a massive 19th Century nail machine. The steel slips into a small crevice. Then, a heavy cleaver lops off a clean cut, producing an eight-inch spike. As soon as the machine cuts one, Nixon flips the pole and the cleaver cuts another.
The more the cleaver cuts, the faster Nixon flips. Now, as the plate gets shorter and shorter, Nixon twirls faster and faster, chopping, chopping, chopping until the 19-inch plate is gone. His pace is a little less than a spike a second. It’s the way spikes are made at Tremont today. The same way they’ve been made since 1850.
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In a land of high tech, Tremont is decidedly low tech. It is one of two remaining U.S. companies that still cuts nails from steel – most nails used today are made from wire. But steel cut nails are still the best nails for two niche markets: Masonry work and historic restoration projects. So, Tremont Nail Co. goes on, providing jobs for area workers and a historic and cultural resource for the town.
“I drove by there Sunday and their parking lot was full,” said Thomas Malloy, project manager for the Wareham Economic Development & Industry Corp. “I know people are very interested in the nail mill for a little bit of Americana.”
A bit of Americana that dates back to 1819. The company, which sits on an 11-acre parcel by Mill Pond, was erected from the ruins of a cotton mill destroyed in the War of 1812. The main factory as it stands today, however, was completed in 1848. Not much has changed there since.
What has changed is the nail market. For years, cut nails were the standard for all kinds of construction. But by the 1920s builders had begun to favor wire nails. They were cheap and easy to use. Unlike cut nails, wire nails could be made so that each is alike. By the 1950s, cut nails had all but disappeared from regular construction jobs.
But the strength of high-carbon steel makes cut nails the nail of choice for workers who are fastening concrete to non-masonry materials. Masonry nails, in fact, now make up 80 percent of the company’s business. The other 20 percent comes from the production of historic nails, for which Tremont has 18 patents.
The two markets are polar opposites. Masonry nails are high-volume, low-profit; restoration nails are low-volume, high profit. But while the restoration-nail market may be lucrative, “It couldn’t keep any mill open, because you couldn’t sell enough of them,” said William T. Driscoll, general manager of the company.
What keeps the mill open is a production process that has changed little since the 19th Century. The process starts inside a warehouse – built in 1976, the newest building on site – where steel sheets are fed into a shot blasting machine called a Wheelabrator to be cleaned. Then it is coated with lime to protect it from rust. Next, the sheets are fed into a giant shear that slices them into strips.
Workers then stack the strips onto pallets and haul them across the company parking lot to the main factory building, where the cutting begins.
The muffled clatter of the factory machines is audible from the outside. Step inside, however, and the low noise swells into a roar, as 60 19th Century nail machines, driven by huge belt shafts that hang from the rafters overhead, spit out nails and spikes. Giant wooden beams support the building’s cavernous structure. The lighting is dim. The air smells burnt. Workers wear blue work pants, shirts, and caps. They wear goggles to protect their eyes. Visitors must do the same.
At one time, the mill used the centrifugal force of channeled water to drive the shafts. Today, motors supply the energy. Belts from the overhead shafts connect with the wheels of the nail machines on the floor. The spinning wheels drive the machines, moving the heavy cleavers up and down in a chopping motion. Workers slide steel plates into the machines, which lop off new cuts. The nails then drop into a bucket waiting below.
While nails can be cut cold, spikes, because they are made from quarter-inch thick steel plates, must be softened first. Workers such as Nixon must heat the plates in a coal-fired hearth, where they cook until they reach 2000 degrees, before feeding them into the nail machines.
Once the masonry and flooring nails are cut, they are shipped off to a Waterbury, Conn. company, Lindberg Heat Treating, to be heat treated. Then, they are trucked back to Tremont and distributed.
For Driscoll, who oversees the production of four million pounds of nails per year, managing the mill is different from his previous work. Radically different, in fact, from the 17 years he spent at The Foxboro Co., a Massachusetts high tech process control company. Taking over Tremont Nail Co. in 1992 required a new outlook on work.
“It’s a hell of a mindset change,” he said. Whereas he once had to study constantly just to keep pace with the changes in the products, at Tremont, an old line manufacturer, the product line seldom changes. “If you’re in this business your product knowledge is close to 90 percent in three months, and you spend the next two years getting that other 10 percent.”
This leaves more time to focus on how to market and sell goods, a change Driscoll said he welcomed. But the nail business presents its own challenges. After World War II, as wire nails gained a grasp on the market, the last cut-nail factories closed. They sold their machinery to Tremont Nail and its only remaining domestic competitor, Wheeling LaBelle in Wheeling, W.Va.
But while U.S. competitors have sold out, new challengers are arising from Asian companies, which are now producing quality nails, Driscoll said. And while Tremont prides itself for skilled workmanship, masonry nails are a commodity sold by price, not quality.
“You can’t sell nails and make a lot of money at it; masonry nails are a high-volume, low price nail,” he said. “Nine times out of 10, the only thing the wholesaler is going to ask you is, ‘How much?'”
Still, Tremont employs 24 full-time workers, most of whom live in the Wareham area. Until 1989 it operated independently, when the Kenyon family that had run it since 1927 sold the company to W.H. Maze Co., a Peru, Ill. firm that produces wire nails.
In addition to providing jobs, however, the town values Tremont as a historic resource. Visitors peer in at the shop floor from windows that surround the building. They visit the Tremont Nail Co. general store – which once served as a cooper shop where they made barrels – across the street.
“It’s in an historic district (and) the buildings have retained their integrity,” said Anthi Frangiadis, former chairwoman of the Wareham Village Association. “I think they’ve done a good job in terms of combining a variety of uses (on site).”
That’s enough for Driscoll. The company has been successful serving its niche markets. And for him, presiding over the company as general manager has been a chance to get into a different type of industry, to run a facility and get involved with every aspect of the business, from finance to shop-floor production. He hasn’t regretted moving out of his old line of work.
“I don’t miss the high tech at all,” he said.
