Carpentry 101 - To the Point?

Old Scotsman Arnie's nail trick.

He was a great carpenter and cabinet maker who did a lot of work for our company. When I saw him hitting the point of the nails with the hammer and flattening them a bit, I was very curious. He was putting molding on cabinets and asked me if I saw any of the thin wood splitting. Nary a one . . . highly unusual. The trick was that the flattened point of the nail would tear through the wood fibers instead of spreading them and causing the wood to split. That one tip has saved me oodles and oodles of "split ends".