Pegs that hold up wooden rain gutter were common in Dutch barns:

I'm gutting the interior of a c.1830 timber frame. There is a peg sticking down through the wide floor plank from the second floor. It has been draw shaved, and is nowhere near any of the main timber components of the frame. Hopefully I will be able to get a better idea of what it is there for as we open up the frame.


Dave

Great comments Ken and others.

Chris How's nail study sounds wonderful. Funny how such a "common" (pun intended) item as a nail could busy someone in scholarly reasearch for months even years at a time.

The thorn hypothesis is esp. interesting (must have been nasty thorns!)... The clay buildings w/ pegged roof boards that you mention Ken sound neat. I'll ask my brother in law who's a Scot about them. And pegging ship decking makes perfect sense.

But given the above responses, it appears that pegs were not used to apply sheathing to structures as a common practice. I had guessed it would have occured here in early America, and esp. Europe.

Oh well-- I still think I'll give it a try sometime on a wall.
If you used oak or hickory "treenails" say 3/4" dia. and drove them in at opposing angles, I'd think you'd have a good method. Not as good as real "nails" but good enough for a barn or other outbuilding that would require some economy. etc.

But there must have been a reason why it wasn't done.

may the education continue...

In Jack Sobon's articles about his constructing his English side entry barn, he created a groove in the bottom side of the tie beams for the siding to stick up into. This eliminated the need for a nail up there, thus reducing the over all total count needed for siding a barn.

There are old stories about how after a fire, in colonial times, that they go to the cold ashes where the house stood and find all the nails that were used in the house.

And reuse them.

The nails that were used to make a plank a door were usually too long for the thickness of the planks. And the tips were bent over on one side. When these "fired" nails were found and they tried to straighten them out; these bent points would break off. And you'd have a very short blunt nail that was not very usable.
And this nail was considered, "dead." And that the origin of the old saying "Dead as a door nail.".......

Interesting for sure.....

Hi Don;

I have seen barn floor plank trenailed to the joists several times. I believe one barn they were skewed (toed, angled). I cannot recall the spacifics about the estimated age or even the type of barns. The most receint example was a single reused joist in connecting girt barn, I could not tell what type of barn the reused piece came from. Typically they are oak, 1" square pegs installed through the 2" plank and 1" subfloor boards into the joists and hold quite well.

A circa 1720 saltbox cape plank-on-frame house from Conneticut I reassembled had 1.5" pins holding the 1.5" oak planks to the oak frame only in the planks beside each original window opening and only into the girts, not the plates, ties or sills. All other fastening was with wrought nails. The 1" oak roof sheathing boards were nailed on.

Some plank houses have pins installed in the plank edges, between each plank, they are joggled. These pins keep the planks in line with each other and help prevent racking since only first-period houses seem to have bracing; most plank houses have no bracing.

I looked tree nail up in a few dictionaries and it is mostly referred to attaching planks to the frame in wooden shipbuilding with black locust being the best material because of strength and low shrinkage. Trunnel is a corruption of tree nail.

Jim

Hi everyone; I had not read the last few posts before my previous reply so here is some more information.

To clarify, Jack Sobon did not create the idea of a groove to hold boards without using nails. It is an early traditional practice, at least here in New England. There are plank grooves too.

Fire door clinch nails are still available for purchse and work well. Clinching the ends of the nails makes them act like screws, they hold two boards together much better than a simple nail.

I had forgotten about using pins to hold roof tiles in place, there are examples of this at Old Salem, North Carolina.


Interesting thread.

Jim

Hi Jim R,

Chris How just sent me the following rendition :-

“There he was crepyde in-to a krage and crouschede to ye erthe;
Ded as a dore-nayle doun was he fallen.”

Parlement of the Thre Ages. Unknown. 14th Century.

Regards

Ken Hume (after C How)

Jim:
I didn't say he created the idea, he just wrote that he used it.
I know he didn't create it as it has been found in older frames before.
Jim

A groove is a great idea. So simple.
I wonder why only floor planks got pinned/pegged.
I've also heard of folks collecting nails after fires... and wasn't a sign of wealth a front door w/ many extra nails?

As a side note:

looking forward to seeing folks tomorrow for the CG tour!

Gabel:

Now that we've chimed in, does what you see in the south differ to a great extent? Ever seen pegs employed in ways other than joint-to joint, etc?