A curved nail, when hammered, travels a similar path in the wood.
How about a nailing gun with a curved barrel so that the nail leaves in an arc therefore doweling tight internal corners?
The gun would have to be more powerful to push the nail but also to form the nail to the curve. The driving pin would have to be flexible and therefore replaced after a set number of shots. The nail composition would be a balancing act between forming ability and nailing driving strength. The barrel could be rotatable giving 360 degrees from gun orientation.
Getting more complex, the driving pin and the forming barrel could be segmented. This would allow for a dialing up a specific curve, including a zero curve.
So, mentally model a bit more and try out Arcshot for joins that straight misses. Just keep your holding, you and everyone else, out of the imagined firing zone.-- wjt, Sep 07 2013 Guns with curved barrels were introduced between WWI and WWII, functioning with various degrees of mediocrity and never seeing widespread use. Any respectable weapons museum has one gathering dust. As far as I know none of them ever fired nails, but why would you want to? The success of the nail as a fastener largely relies upon its rigidity, which is compromised when one gets bent.-- Alterother, Sep 07 2013 ...unless you are using a sub-floor stapler, in which case the staples are designed to be divergent.-- 2 fries shy of a happy meal, Sep 07 2013 Which has recently supplanted street racing, parquor, and casual rioting to become London's hottest new urban sport.-- Alterother, Sep 07 2013 Is bent the same as a curve? I would have thought bent means a weak point where as with a formed curve the stress has been distributed.-- wjt, Sep 07 2013 I believe the word you're looking for is strain, and yes, a bend means a weak point whereas a curve distributes strain evenly across the center. But once again, why? No purpose is mentioned in the idea, and none is obvious to me.-- Alterother, Sep 07 2013 I think that nails shaped to curve on their own, fired from a normal nailer would be good. Curved nails in a random pattern would fasten much more securely than straight nails.-- 2 fries shy of a happy meal, Sep 08 2013 How did I miss that?
I need to sleep more...-- Alterother, Sep 08 2013 ^Then ya shouldn't a had a kid :)-- AusCan531, Sep 08 2013 random, halfbakery