Mystery objects from Alabama.

[Boomer1]

A friend and I found these at a site in northern Alabama. It is an 1840's site, but we don't know how old they are .

They are roughly the size of roofing nails. The head is slightly smaller than a dime and octagon shaped. The shanks are about an inch long, some are bent while others are straight. I'm leaning away from them being nails or tacks because they are two piece and they are made of copper.

They were found with the remnants of a canvas bag at about 8 inches deep.

 

[taz42o]

Those are storm anchors for asbestos roof tiles.

 

[Boomer1]

I can see where they might be anchors, but as yet I've been unable to find any photos of them in use or new.

 

[taz42o]

They are very hard to find pics of I had a link to a book with them but cant find it.
They were used on johns-manville asbestos and cement fiber shingles/tiles.
Here is a patent that shows a drawing of one [fig.6] and describes ow they were used.

http://www.google.com/patents/US1775085?printsec=drawing&dq=johns+manville+storm+anchor&ei=ThB_T82fDpCE8ASMr5XeBw#v=onepage&q=johns%20manville%20storm%20anchor&f=false

The flat part goes against the roof the pin goes up through holes in the corners of tiles and are bent over to prevent wind lift.

 

[Aarong81]

Nice info, Taz! Do you mean that the pin is inserted through the roof from the underside, pointing up? I see how that would work but sounds like alot of trouble. They could be driven down from the top and bent from underneith and be just as affective. Nice research!

 

[taz42o]

Nice info, Taz! Do you mean that the pin is inserted through the roof from the underside, pointing up? I see how that would work but sounds like alot of trouble. They could be driven down from the top and bent from underneith and be just as affective. Nice research!

No they do not go through the roof sheeting, only through the shingles.
They just hold the shingle corners to the previous row of shingles with are nailed to the roof with regular nails.
Here is a link to the book its a kinda large pdf. file. the anchor use is described on page 22-23.
They are not hammered through anything, they are not nails ,they dont have points .they are installed through holes by hand and bent over with a hammer.

 

[407floyd]

I've found that some old sites are littered with these and it drives me crazy because individually, they register the same as a copper cent.

 

[Boomer1]

Thanks for the identification. It really had us stumped.

We didn't see any head stamps, but didn't get to clean them off very well.

 

[taz42o]

Sorry I forgot the link I referred to.

http://www.apti.org/publications/Tech-Archive/Johns-Manville-Shingles-1930.pdf



Eternit also made fiber cement tiles ,

There is a company turning them into solar shingles.

Atlantis Energy Systems, based in Sacramento, California, manufactures solar power shingles under the Sunslates brand name. The shingles begin life as an Eternit fiber cement roofing tile. Atlantis Energy Systems glues a low glare tempered glass power panel to the exposed surface of each tile.