How ordinary nails can replace brick and concrete dowels: a useful building trick
Let's say you need to mount a frame or fix a rack on a concrete / brick wall, but there are no suitable dowels at hand. What to do in this case? Use regular nails! This method is called "Turkish dowel".
How does the "Turkish dowel" work?
For example, you have nails L 100 mm (weaving). A puncher for them needs to punch / drill a hole with a diameter of 8 mm and a depth of 100 mm. Then, with a hammer, drive three nails into this hole at once (a stack) and the “Turkish dowel” is ready!
Holds this type of fastener securely - due to the bursting efforts, the nail rods perfectly adhere to solid material (concrete / brick). If necessary, the "Turkish dowel" is dismantled without much difficulty, since the nails do not have corrugations and teeth. To dismantle the dowel from the nails, you only need a nail puller.
But how to select holes for other nails?
Everything is very simple. In the case of a “weave”, the diameter of the rod of this nail is 4 mm. The diameter of the hole should be twice the diameter of one nail. If, for example, you use nails 140 or 150 mm long with a shank diameter of 5 mm, then the hole diameter should be 10 mm, respectively.
In general, double the diameter of the nail and you can't go wrong!
Where to use it?
Basically, the "Turkish dowel" is used as a temporary measure or, in places where aesthetics are not important. And, of course, this fastener will be much more profitable in economic terms than the use of specialized dowels.