In praise of a tool

Part of my "free time" yesterday was spent finishing off the fence I started working on a few weeks ago. My original plan was to nail up the remaining rails and top-cap boards, and then build and hang the two gates. If any time remained, I thought I'd make an attempt at some decorative touches over the gates.

Well, the best-laid plans of mice and woodworkers, and all of that. I didn't even manage to get started on building the gates, and there's still a few bits of finish carpentry required on one short panel of the fence. But that isn't really the point of this little whine. The point was that the job took longer than I'd planned partly because I was missing an essential little tool: a Japanese nail set.

The big 3" nails I was driving were fine, until they were nearly flush with the surface of the fence . . . because most of them were being driven in at about a 45-degree angle to the face of the boards. You can only be as inaccurate as I am for so long before you're leaving so many marks on the surface of the wood that it looks like a monstrous demented woodpecker has been let loose.