Good news. it must be a nice wooden one. I can’t see a dog picking up a 4 foot aluminum level.
My neighbor leaves all his tools out when working on a project. I should try the dog excuse next time I want to borrow something 
I have two boxes of these real tiny finishing nails about 1/2" I guess and very thin. They’re from about fifty years ago and I’ve been carrying them through my life from one home to another and I never had a use for them until 2008 when I became a backyard railroader.
I believe they are specially made for building wooden boxes. I drill and then tap these puppies in. But don’t despair - just get the smallest finishing nails you can find and drill first. I have several drills - two hand drills, a dremel, 5 pin vices, all different sizes, and a couple of miniature hand drills, and I use 'em all, all the time!
I also make nails with stovepipe wire - the blackened steel stuff - it comes in 2 or three gauges. It doesn’t take long to snip off a bunch of short lengths and have them ready to poke into their holes. I drill the holes in at opposing angles so the nails will hold against each other even without heads.
I actually 'sew my bridges together with lengths of this wire too. You can see some on my website, which is actually a Google map page. Right now I am amking a coaling tower completely with the handmade nails as I’ve described here. It has a roof made of corrugated beercans nailed on.
So I go to some trouble to make mechanical joints rather than glued ones. But once I’ve got everything lined up I find the work does go quickly enough. But it’s when it’s all finished that I get the most satisfaction - I can look at something I’ve made and I know it isn’t going to fall apart because of rain - it’s going to hold solid for a long long time. One other thing - as I said, I’m still very deep into construction of the basic pike.
Change of subject, sort of: I am way, WAY, more interested in operation than model building any more. I spent 40+ years as a dedicated scratchbuilder, but nowadays I feel life is too short - I want to PLAY with my trains, not build them endlessly, which is what I was doing before!
So If I’m going to build anything, it better be a revenue source, a traffic generator - an INDUSTRY !!! (or somewhere else to drop off or pick up a freightcar.) I don’t have very much room for buildings and towns and all that in my little city backyard, and I don’t have any use for a lot of the usual buildings you often see on garden railroads.
I don’t care about jails, candy shops, fire stations, cemeteries, and all that. They don’t have anything to do with my railroad. 
I want grain elevators, factories, mills, dairies, freightsheds, warehouses, icing platform, stockyard, meatpackers, cannery - places where I can drop off freightcars. YEAH!!!
Not always but often, due to a lack of space, my industries are only flats in back of the track! Sometimes an industry of mine will be even less than a flat - just a little symbol to mark a car spot. My tankcars don’t yet actually have a fuel depot - all there is is just a couple of parked Texaco trucks to show where the Texaco tankcar goes! My construction company is busy with a grader and some labourers. My quarry is just a loader! Well, it may not be much, but it takes up very little space, and it took no time at all to build! :lol:
This may not work for everybody, but that’s the way I do it… and I sure am having fun with my trains!!!
I knew your level would show up! 
I was at a junk store today and I run across some discontinued sell off stuff.
!/2 inch nails and 1/2 inch finish nails for 50 cents per box.
Unfortunatly I didn’t have much money on me but I will go bak for more.
Let the construction begin.
Ahhh! Hard, hard rain last weekend. washed out track where I just fixed up not too long ago. I guess I’ll have to concider getting a bridge. Ahhh !
I didn’t even run a train on it yet.
I guess it could be worse.
Those were available in any hardware store up until the nails were purchased from China. I guess they don’t know how to make nails that small. I bought up a bunch of nails and finish nails from the discontinued bin at a local surplus store.
paid 50 cents a container. all boxes marked made in USA. the stuff I find now is marked China, but nothing small enough.
John Le Forestier said:
I have two boxes of these real tiny finishing nails about 1/2" I guess and very thin. They're from about fifty years ago and I've been carrying them through my life from one home to another and I never had a use for them until 2008 when I became a backyard railroader.I believe they are specially made for building wooden boxes. I drill and then tap these puppies in. But don’t despair - just get the smallest finishing nails you can find and drill first. I have several drills - two hand drills, a dremel, 5 pin vices, all different sizes, and a couple of miniature hand drills, and I use 'em all, all the time!
I also make nails with stovepipe wire - the blackened steel stuff - it comes in 2 or three gauges. It doesn’t take long to snip off a bunch of short lengths and have them ready to poke into their holes. I drill the holes in at opposing angles so the nails will hold against each other even without heads.
I actually 'sew my bridges together with lengths of this wire too. You can see some on my website, which is actually a Google map page. Right now I am amking a coaling tower completely with the handmade nails as I’ve described here. It has a roof made of corrugated beercans nailed on.
So I go to some trouble to make mechanical joints rather than glued ones. But once I’ve got everything lined up I find the work does go quickly enough. But it’s when it’s all finished that I get the most satisfaction - I can look at something I’ve made and I know it isn’t going to fall apart because of rain - it’s going to hold solid for a long long time. One other thing - as I said, I’m still very deep into construction of the basic pike.
Change of subject, sort of: I am way, WAY, more interested in operation than model building any more. I spent 40+ years as a dedicated scratchbuilder, but nowadays I feel life is too short - I want to PLAY with my trains, not build them endlessly, which is what I was doing before!
So If I’m going to build anything, it better be a revenue source, a traffic generator - an INDUSTRY !!! (or somewhere else to drop off or pick up a freightcar.) I don’t have very much room for buildings and towns and all that in my little city backyard, and I don’t have any use for a lot of the usual buildings you often see on garden railroads.
I don’t care about jails, candy shops, fire stations, cemeteries, and all that. They don’t have anything to do with my railroad.
Not always but often, due to a lack of space, my industries are only flats in back of the track! Sometimes an industry of mine will be even less than a flat - just a little symbol to mark a car spot. My tankcars don’t yet actually have a fuel depot - all there is is just a couple of parked Texaco trucks to show where the Texaco tankcar goes! My construction company is busy with a grader and some labourers. My quarry is just a loader! Well, it may not be much, but it takes up very little space, and it took no time at all to build! :lol:
This may not work for everybody, but that’s the way I do it… and I sure am having fun with my trains!!!
I knew your level would show up!