Trenail or dowel plug cutter?

[Wayland]

A question for the green woodworkers out there.

Some years ago I was shown a nifty tool that worked a bit like a big pencil sharpener to quickly produce trenails or large dowel plugs from split wood.

I've been searching for a while now but I'm stuck because I don't know the name of the tool.

Anyone recognise it from my description?

 

[ForgeCorvus]

Like this?
http://www.leevalley.com/wood/page.aspx?c=2&p=42331&cat=1,180,42288

 

[Wayland]

That's quite similar but the one I saw was hand held.

Hadn't found that one though.

 

[demographic]

Like this?
http://www.leevalley.com/wood/page.aspx?c=2&p=42331&cat=1,180,42288

Just what I was going to suggest.

 

[Bardster]

The green woodworking ones are called rounders and come in fixed sizes usually, although adjustable ones are available.
http://www.woodsmithstore.co.uk/shop/Products/Tools/Rounders/

another mechanical one..
http://www.rutlands.co.uk/cgi-bin/psProdDet.cgi/J6001

 

[mr dazzler]

LOL Only this morning I was just watching an old film where a rake maker was using a "stail engine" to make rake handles. They used to make them from big pieces of apple wood or beech and an old plane iron, pretty much like a pencil sharpener.
What do you need the tree nails or pegs for? Do you need to make loads? what diameter and how long? The veritas stuff is flashy, expensive and does work. But a lot to spend if its just a few pegs needed. And another thing with that veritas one, unless your wood is perfectly straight in terms of grain direction, the pegs it makes will have cross grain-if the grain is wavy in the blank, the machine wont recognise it. If you split and shape them yourself you follow and keep the grain direction which dramatically increases peg strength, even if it isnt perfectly arrow straight-it will still function more efficiently as a peg. Do your pegs need to have plenty of structural strength? Have you thought of using a dowel plate (big hefty iron plate with various sized holes drilled in it, or a piece of steel pipe with an internal diamter the same as your required peg size)-you pound your split blanks through it one after another, its like extrusion in a way. If the wood is green they will shrink a bit. How critical is diametr for your projects? I do a lot of drawpegged mortice and tennons, for that a roughly octagonal cross sectioned peg is fine, I taper them to a gradual point (so they resemble a wedge type reamer shape rather than a cylindrical pencil with just the very end sharpened) I just use a froe, axe and knife for those, from good clean oak. As you drive them into the offset peg holes the gradual taper tightens the joint much more gradually, much less likely to "pop the relish" LOL! I also do chair spindles sometimes which do need to be quite acurately sized with several different diamteres and profiles. I use froe/axe/drawknife to get to a rough form. Then let them dry out. Then finish with a spokeshave. I use template blocks with the required spindle diameters drilled in-I use these as a conastant reference while spokeshaving. Some old carpenters just used odd bits of tapered square oak to make rough nails to peg up softer woods like pine, the sharp edges mesh into the softer wood and grip it.
hope this helps

 

[robin wood]

LOL Only this morning I was just watching an old film where a rake maker was using a "stail engine" to make rake handles. They used to make them from big pieces of apple wood or beech and an old plane iron, pretty much like a pencil sharpener.
What do you need the tree nails or pegs for? Do you need to make loads? what diameter and how long? The veritas stuff is flashy, expensive and does work. But a lot to spend if its just a few pegs needed. And another thing with that veritas one, unless your wood is perfectly straight in terms of grain direction, the pegs it makes will have cross grain-if the grain is wavy in the blank, the machine wont recognise it. If you split and shape them yourself you follow and keep the grain direction which dramatically increases peg strength, even if it isnt perfectly arrow straight-it will still function more efficiently as a peg. Do your pegs need to have plenty of structural strength? Have you thought of using a dowel plate (big hefty iron plate with various sized holes drilled in it, or a piece of steel pipe with an internal diamter the same as your required peg size)-you pound your split blanks through it one after another, its like extrusion in a way. If the wood is green they will shrink a bit. How critical is diametr for your projects? I do a lot of drawpegged mortice and tennons, for that a roughly octagonal cross sectioned peg is fine, I taper them to a gradual point (so they resemble a wedge type reamer shape rather than a cylindrical pencil with just the very end sharpened) I just use a froe, axe and knife for those, from good clean oak. As you drive them into the offset peg holes the gradual taper tightens the joint much more gradually, much less likely to "pop the relish" LOL! I also do chair spindles sometimes which do need to be quite acurately sized with several different diamteres and profiles. I use froe/axe/drawknife to get to a rough form. Then let them dry out. Then finish with a spokeshave. I use template blocks with the required spindle diameters drilled in-I use these as a conastant reference while spokeshaving. Some old carpenters just used odd bits of tapered square oak to make rough nails to peg up softer woods like pine, the sharp edges mesh into the softer wood and grip it.
hope this helps

Good advice there, I was going to suggest a dowel plate, it is what most of the rake makers used to use and is surprisingly fast and efficient if you need to make a load of similar sized but not finely finished short dowels. The rounder/stail engine type are better if your work is longer and Ray Iles ones work or these are better and more expensive http://www.ashemcrafts.com/products_rotary_planes.aspx or old home made ones often turn up amongst old tools and can be made with old plane blades, its only a big pencil sharpener.

Mr Dazzler, was the Rake Maker Trevor Austin in Kent? I used to do shows with him for many years but he got MS and sadly no one took the rake factory on.

 

[mr dazzler]

No Rob, the film was one of Jack Hargreaves's Out of town. Probably about 1972-75 judging by the cars! The rakemaker was Mr Sims of Pamber End. His family had been making rakes for 200 years. He used a neat method to get the dowel teeth into the rake head. Flatted the end just a tiny little bit with a hammer on a solid base (like drawing out in blacksmithing) then dip it in water, then drive it into the pre drilled hole. No need for a through or foxed wedge, or a nail.

 

[Wayland]

Good advice there, I was going to suggest a dowel plate, it is what most of the rake makers used to use and is surprisingly fast and efficient if you need to make a load of similar sized but not finely finished short dowels. The rounder/stail engine type are better if your work is longer and Ray Iles ones work or these are better and more expensive http://www.ashemcrafts.com/products_rotary_planes.aspx or old home made ones often turn up amongst old tools and can be made with old plane blades, its only a big pencil sharpener.

That's the type I saw, well done, although I do like the look of these.

I want it for producing 1" trenails for Viking building work like these but I also thought they would be handy for making spiles and plugs for birch tapping.

 

[robin wood]

That's the type I saw, well done, although I do like the look of these.

I want it for producing 1" trenails for Viking building work like these but I also thought they would be handy for making spiles and plugs for birch tapping.

I would shave those with axe and knife, drawknife on a shave horse if you have more than a few dozen. The octagonal section is actually better as the corners bite and get a good grip. Besides which its the way the originals were done. First turned ones I know of are from a 17th C boat.

 

[mr dazzler]

Looking at your picture the peg isnt being used to draw peg a mortice and tennon. it may be in this case that they did use a peg that wasnt tapered, but with almost parallel sides, and drive it into the wet wood. If the peg is dry or drier than the wood beam it goes into, when the beam shrinks it will tighten around the peg, much like a rawl plug, and be difficult to pull out as a result. The octagonal cross section does act as Rob says to get a grip particularly when the beam shrinks around it.

There are (or were) 1000's of timber framed buildings in England and New England, and almost exclusively they were pegged with pegs like those in the picture-hand hewn and octagonal. Although in Jack Sobons book I think there is a picture of turned pegs possibly on a barn built by dutch settlers, not sure off hand. It takes me maybe 2 minutes to get a 10 or 12 inch length of log down to 20 or so usable heartwood 1 inch square blanks, then a minute or so to shape each of them with the axe and knife. In fact I have done them entirely with the axe sometimes, just choke up with a close grip and use a slicing planing cut to shape the facet's. I have holes drilled in the chopping block and use that as a rough guide. They must be dry when they are used. The hand hewn method is much more in tune with the viking characteristic, they were very precise all the same. The veritas thing is really a fancy gimmick and the sterile tubular perfection it gives would look sort of weird on a building made with hewn beam's and riven board's

Here are a few commercial examples. They give a good idea of the long gradual taper you need for a good peg for drawpegged mortice and tennons

On this first one the "drawn peg" is the one to use. There is a school of thought that some adopted, where the joints are first pulled up very close and tight with ratchet straps, THEN drilled through and pegged with a dowel type peg. But this is a modern interpretation. It isnt as forgiving when you get shrinkage. The tapered version is superior, there is built in sspringiness which remains even after shrinkage, so the joint stays up tight. Plenty of old barns have been taken apart aqnd rebuilt, they stood through 2 or 3 hundred years of seasonal change and the pegs didnt usually fail.

http://images.google.co.uk/imgres?i...channel=s&rls=org.mozilla:en-GB:official&sa=N

http://www.greenwood-direct.co.uk/default.cfm/loadindex.31

http://www.ecolots.co.uk/index.php/...e/7-Sawn-Timber/14876-Timber-Framing-Oak-Pegs

 

[Muncus]

can be made with old plane blades, its only a big pencil sharpener.

Hi Wayland

Stail Engine Pattern

I found this pattern that may be of use to you.

James

 

[Tadpole]

I was watching this the other day and thought of it's use (maybe) in rake making

 

[demographic]

For the octagonal ones you just need to cut the oak to a square cross section and either use a blockplane or drawknife to take the corners off.

If you also use holes that are very slightly offset you can get the peg to tighten the joint up as well, like when you are putting a staircase and the holes in the stringer are slightly offset from the holes in the newell posts to draw the joint tighter.
Pretty sure its called draw pegging.

If it were the round dowel like ones you were after than you could even put a thread on them with a Woodthreading Kit.but thats for a totally different use altogether.

 

[demographic]

Just returning to this thread cos I spotted THIS which might be of interest to people.

These were the oak pegs used in a place I was working in a while ago as well, they were used in the roof timbers but the ones that held the oak flooring boards down weren't a vast amount different.