Tips for your first nail that nobody told me

I made a batch of these last winter out of some scrap rebar I had left over from a patio job. My first few heads came out lopsided becuase I was trying to form them over the edge of the anvil instead of using the pritchel hole like you described. Once I switched to the hole, the heads actually started looking like heads. I found a short section of an old farrier's rasp worked okay for counterboring the hole since my anvil's hole was a bit big for nail stock.

On the cracking issue, I had one billet split right down the middle at a yellow heat and I figured I'd ruined the whole piece. I let it cool, reheated to a dull orange, and it moved fine after that. Now I pretty much work everthing cold-to-orange and haven't had a split since. For keeping things square, I do the quarter-turn rotation too, but I count my blows per face. Three light blows per side seems to keep it even better than fewer heavier ones, at least with my hammer control, wich is still pretty rough six months in.

I hung a shelf in the garage with a handful of mine and they grip better than I expected. Way oversunk the heads on a couple so they sit proud of the wood, but they're not going anywhere.

Funny how much technique goes into somethig folks used to knock out by the thousand in a day. My grandfather cut nail stock from wagon tire iron and never bothered counting blows, just had a rhythm you could set a watch to. He also kept a worn hardy hole block with a row of different sized holes drilled in it, worked like a header for shanks of any thickness. If you keep at it, try clenching a few thru a thin board the old way, bend the point back into the wood and you'll see why those nails held barns togather for a century.

One thing that helped mine look less like rebar with a bad haircut was grinding the ribs off the stock first. Tried forging right over them and every nail came out with those little grooves running down the shank. Ten minutes with an angle grinder before lighting the forge saved a lot of fuss. I also hit mine with some boiled linseed oil after wire brushing the scale off, keeps the rust from eating them in the damp garage. Two winters in and the ones holding my workbench trim still look decent.

Still reading through all this with a notepad open, honestly. I don't even have a real forge yet, been practicing tapering mild steel bar in a charcoal chimney starter with a hair dryer for airflow, which probaly sounds ridiculous. Anyway my question is about the heading part. If your anvil doesn't have a hole that fits the stock, is there any reason you couldn't just drill a hole through a chunk of scrap and clamp it in a vise? That's what I'd be working with til I find something better. Also good to hear rebar holds up, that's basicly all I have access to right now.