Timber Framers Guild Forums General Barns and Traditional Timberframing Pegs -- riven, sawn, drawn, turned, driven, etc?

Jim

I guess I was wondering about pin/peg use outside of timber-to-timber joinery. Sounds like you have seen planks pinned (to joists, right?) Were the pins/pegs like normal timber-to-timber ones or different? Were they inserted at an angle, etc?

My curiosity stems from the whole "treenail" concept. Because nails were rare/costly, I think treenails could have been used to fasten sheathing/boards.

I guess this begs the question on the origin of the word "nail." You know, a sort of which came first kind of thing: the peg or the nail? (I know it's the peg, but why refer to them as "nails" at all?)

Treenail is a sort of hybrid word that hints they (pegs/pins) were used as nails.Maybe a look in the old dictionaries about "nail" would be interesting. It's origin and date etc.

KEN,

Are you listening? Have you seen pegs/pins/treenails attaching boards or sheathing?

I'd like to try it sometime...