"Handmade tables inlaid with hundreds, even thousands of nails of various diameters"
I have been making furniture in my rural New Hampshire shop one at a time, by hand for 25 years. My more recent work involves inlaying regular;ar old construction nails in my table surfaces. The nails are cut flush with the table surface and polished. The resulting effect is a pattern of shiny dots of various diameters. My patterns come from many sources. A favorite is very old hand cut Japanese stencils used for kimono fabric, called katagami.