Help please - wooden 'nails' *LINK*

Re: Help please - wooden 'nails'

Pam Niedermayer - Austin, TX

>Seems that you could make your own pins with knife and wood (oak is a good choice). Of course, the trick is to make them all the same size, but it should be easy to get close. It also seems that they wouldn't have to be tapered. In Kingshott's M&T video, he makes a pin/treenail without too much hassle, said it used to be the apprentice's job. These are for pinning tenons.

To drill a tapered hole, why not a small reamer with brace? Or a gimlet type reamer.

The Japanese often use bamboo as nails and a gimlet reamer.

Pam

Re: Help please - wooden 'nails'

Pam Niedermayer - Austin, TX

>That Japanese reamer has a long wooden handle with a 3 or 4 forked cutting point, not like what westerners would call a gimlet. I've often seen one on ebay. There are also some reaming knives that are fairly wicked looking.

Pam

Miller Dowels are the modern replacement.

Tim of Dublin

>And they work very well too!

Re: Miller Dowels are the modern replacement.

Mike G.

>This might be slightly off topic, but in the Christmas tree business, there's a company that sells a tapered drill bit about 5 inches long with 9/16" being the biggest diameter and about 1/8" being the small end. It's used to drill a hole up through the bottom of the tree when using a spiked tree stand. They run about 35 bucks or so, but might be too big for what you want. I was just reading one of their ads in a trade publication, but can't find a link for them.

Another possibility might be what's called a unibit. It's a stepped tapered bit used mostly by electricians to bore holes in sheet metal boxes. Don't know how well they'd do in wood, though.

Mike G.

Look to wooden boat building techniques

Bob Hackett

>Plank on frame wooden boat construction traditionally used this technique.I have some old white oak frames from some of the larger schooners that were dredged out of the coves around here.Thier yellow pine planks were pinned to the frames using black locust "trunnels"(how they pronounce the original word,treenails,up here).I`m sure if you look to the old marine techniques you`ll find all the info you can use and then some.

Mainely,Bob

Re: Help please - wooden 'nails'

Christof Hartge

>Hello Conger,

wooden nails are my favourite to secure mortise and tenon joints - Just a drop of glue on the middle inside of the tenon so that the wood shrinks only to the 'good' side and you are done.

Traditionally in Germany linden wood (tilla) was used for this purpose. Easy to work with and easy to smooth. These wooden nails are just square with beveled edges under the top to prevent spalting.

Just saw off a board in the required diameter. Take out a chisel and spalt one nail after the other.

Drive them in with a drop of glue and cut them off a mm or so above the surface.

Put a chisel bevel up on the surface and cut of the remmnants with one corner of the chisel.

Christof.

What he said...

Mark Harrison -- in Sydney, Australia

>Because I was about to say the same thing. :-)

Re: Help please - wooden 'nails'

Chad Boehlke

>I would not buy anything you can make easly. I have used oak stright grain, split it bigger than the hole and trim it. I have also used a sizing platte. A 1/8" thick steel plate with the size holes you need drilled into it.