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Showerthought: I read that a standard 6-foot cedar picket fence uses about 1,200 nails, which I found in a 1998 trade magazine at my grandpa's house.

That number seems crazy high to me, so does anyone have a better count from their own work, maybe for a different style like chain link or vinyl?
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3 Comments
the_patricia
That "1,200 nails" stat from the old magazine is wild. I saw a modern guide for a basic wood fence that said it was more like 400 nails for the whole thing. Maybe building methods or nail types were just different back then.
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oscar_hernandez
Oh man, that's a huge difference. I bet the old stat counted every single nail, like for the pickets, rails, and posts all together. Modern guides probably just mean the nails for attaching the pickets to the rails, leaving out the structural stuff.
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holly_flores79
Oscar_hernandez is right about them counting every nail, even the ones for the post brackets. You see this everywhere now, numbers get inflated to sound more impressive. A car ad says it has a thousand features but most are just basic stuff counted separately. Makes you question any stat you hear.
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