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

Don,

The main difference is that I've yet to see a hardwood peg in an old frame in Georgia -- they're all heart pine. sometimes 30 rings to the inch. Mostly 1" holes. Pegs are riven and shaved to a taper. Some octagons, some rounder than that. All draw bored. Some crude, some well made. Sometimes in the same frame.

Honestly, I am often guilty of not looking closely at the pegs in a frame -- something I think a lot of us do. That is one of the main reasons I started this thread. If nothing else, a few of us will be paying more attention to the lowly peg next time we visit an old frame.

I can't think of any cases of things other than joints being pegged that I've personally seen. Oh, here's one. The window and door bucks on hewn log buildings were usually pegged with fairly large pegs -- 1 1/2" or so to the end grain of the logs. I've seen a few of those.

I have seen very basic half lap joints, 2' long with 1-1/2" maple pegs, four of them per splice. One of the rare times I have seen hard wood used as pegging stock. The other place I have seen hard wood used is with a single peg, 1", shaved and tapered, red oak, at the dropped tie with a wedge, there was 8 of them in the whole frame, this is rare in my area. They looked much different than the spruce ones. Tim

Hi

I had a bin of pins laying around so here are some images of them. Near the center of the first photo is a 5/8" pin from a carrage shed. The others are typical, oak pins.





The short pin is 3" long and was holding a thin-wall type of frame together. Note the crooked point on a pin to the left. I did not have any other severly deformed pins... next time I will keep the bad pins I pull out of a frame just as examples.



Jim

oak pegs of about 1/4 to 3/8 ths square were used extensively in Southern England to fix oak shingles onto timber spires.
They now use nail guns, but many oak pegs survive in the boarding.
So there are some historical uses for sheathing/roofing.

Jim, that's quite a collection... It would be neat to catalog the inventory to its perspective building. Have you done so? I know, we have lives, too, right? (wait a minute. this is our life!)

Sussexoak--

That's just what I'd been wondering about... "nailing" things on w/ treenails/pegs. It makes perfect sense that this was done. Can you get a picture sometime?
Boards/ sheathing must have been affixed this way, too.

How odd that they are square pegs! ...eaiser to produce, perhaps. Does this mean they went through a round hole?

Yes, square pegs in a round hole. They grip very well,abundant raw material, relatively quick and easy to produce, and durable.

Hello everyone

Relative to this topic on the use of wood pegs for unusual purposes, in the shoe making trade in the 18th century, the layers of leather for soles and attaching heels were fastened on with small wood pegs instead of tacks

NH

On a lighter side, didn't some pirates have peg legs? I bet the only shoe they had then used pegs, too. Tim

Tim:

I believe pirates had "pin legs" !!

Sussex Oak:

Please post a photo of those pegs attaching the shingles-- or anything else... a remnant of a sipire post full of holes, etc. I'd love to see it.

"pieces of eight, pieces of eight" Squawks Captain Flint.

I saw more 1" square pegs used on braces today. Tim
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