Hi Jay, you first wrote

The extra length gets the tapered end outside the joint and also allows you to trim the striking end of the trunnel, should it start to "mushroom," or "split apart," before you have driven it all the way through.

I replied

Jay wrote earlier about driving pegs and mushrooming and splitting and cutting off the damaged end, In my view that is completely wrong, damaged on the end means the peg and bore are injured, drive it back out and replace. So use good technique, regard setting the draw bore peg as setting a spring, over driving defeats the purpose and weakens the system.

You answered

I will have to challenge you on your view that this is "completely wrong," because just because a tenon has begun to falter at the striking end, does not mean you have damaged the entire trunnel. Quite the contrary, if a trunnel is beginning to falter and you continue to strike it without the repair, you will damage it to a point that it will have to be replaced. Nor does it mean you have damaged the bore. The goal is not to smash a trunnel into place, but we all know that some do fail. If they present with shear failure, of course they should be removed. However, if the trunnels is well made and of sound wood, trimming the striking end a wee bit is of no great concern. For your second point, "over driving defeats the purpose," I may be reading your meaning wrong. The trunnel should be sound of nature and not damaged. If so, then it does need to be remove and replaced.

Challenge accepted. So what's behind mushrooming and splitting?

1. Mushrooming--cause, driving force too high--reason, peg to thick, offset too great--conclusion, reject

2. Mushrooming--cause, weak peg, such as high ring count ring porous hardwood, unnoticed decay, wrong species--conclusion, reject

3. Splitting--cause, grain runout, flaw in grain--conclusion, reject

4. Splitting--cause, off center hard face hammer blow--conclusion--possible parallel and horizontal shear, reject and strike with a soft face hammer or a mallet

So that is where the completely wrong conclusion stems from.

I also wrote

When driving the pegs, I align the bores with a erectors spud wrench, drive the peg making certain the joint seats continue driving until the peg tightens in the bore and stop once tight.

Jay, you replied

Why wouldn't you use the tool that was meant for this, and in the manner it was meant to be used? Iron draw pins are driven to the point of seating the joint. Now, if there are two trunnel holes, you may drive the second peg with little effort. If only one hole, you remove the draw pin and replace it with a peg, and because the drawn pin has seated well the joint, you trunnel does not work as hard entering the joint.

Try making an effort to understand the other guy. Here is a link to an identical erectors wrench that I have been using about fifteen years

http://www.service.kleintools.com/Tools/...CH/Product/3214

The wrench is completely handy, hangs on a hammer loop, and is specifically designed for aligning bore holes, sorry it's not traditionally proper. Tomatoes Toe-Mahh-Toes

I must admit to peevishness so night night

Grind off that wrench end and weld on a T-handle, nice iron draw pin.

I don't recall ever seeing mushroomed peg heads. But I have seen clientele drive a peg with a sledge hammer....... the draw was tight..... the peg sharp.... it went in right but was driven out the side of the timber! after making it through the tenon the peg was pushed off alignment. I heard way to much pounding and came to look. Always entertaining to have extra "help".

Even'n Roger, et al,

O.K. I'll try to address each point you made Roger.

True mushrooming of wood fibers can happen either by too high a driving force or a light force over repeated strokes, as often happens at raising with folks that cant it hard but can hit often. (one reason we keep striking caps around, just to avoid this.) If the offset is to great, tradition teaches to alter offset and/or you should have used a real Draw pin.


This can be very true and I agree, however, when the peg was being created through proper riving and/or assessment by an experienced timber wright, it would have never made it into the hands of someone that would try to put it into a frame, it would have been rejected much sooner.

Agreed again, but also the same comment about assessment, it should have never been chosen to be a trunnel.

Absolutely agree, this is a reject and the person that is doing the work should be using a striking cap until they develop better technique.

I'm sorry Sir, by no means have you justified this position.

As a teacher and facilitator of this craft and others, I always try to understand someones position of a topic, but if I feel my experiences and training notes a possible flaw in their methods, I share that. I not only know about Klein tools, I have even facilitated their modification, as Tim suggested tonight.

The issue with you method is that traditional Draw Pins are meant to be driven to their maximum size, that is why they come in different sizes. You are to drive them until they reach that specific terminus, which is just a wee bit shy of the trunnel hole they are placed in. So unless you are drilling 1.125" Trunnel bores, the Klien tool you are using is not correctly being implemented for for true Draw Pin technique. It is not tomatos or Toe-Mahh-Toes. It's apples and oranges.

I'm not at all feeling peevish but you still have not made a solid point about me being in error in anyway. I don't even think we disagree that much. However, I do think I have as much, or maybe more, experience than you, and perhaps it's you that should, "Try making an effort to understand the other guy." Your technique is not flawed per say, but it is not complete or being implemented correctly or as it was intended to be, that's all.

Regards, jay

I resemble that remark! Well... It wasn't a sledge hammer, but I did manage an excessively drawn spline fitted into a narrow (10cm) beam where the peg split the outer face of the beam as a consequence of the angle it took through the spline. No major damage done, but embarassing nonetheless!

I guess this sort of learning is what first builds are all about! :-)

Hi Jon,

You know one thing, maybe I should call it a "striking surface distortion," because it isn't like the true "mushrooming," like you get on the top of a chisel.

I should also note that we use metal hammers almost exclusively for striking chisels and pegs, as that seem to be the norm in most places I have witnessed, or really hard wood mallets. It would seem about a 60/40 or 70/30 percentage, in favor of metal strikers over wood/leather. I personally have used an antique 750 g (26.5 oz) Japanese Diaku's Hammer (don't know the exact age,) and a 100 plus year old Trow and Holden 1.4 k (3 lb) Carvers Hammer for most of my life in furniture and timber wrighting. We use sledges with pads, when striking a frame or furniture or massive dead-blows. There is a few wood mallets and leather mallets around but they are light in weight and reserved for guests/students that don't have the skill or stamina to swing large traditional metal hammers.

Regards, jay

Steel stickers! Not in my shop. A steel sticker is too hard which will deliver more impact. Impact is absorbed by the struck face and will cause damage.(hence the mushrooming you mentioned that I don't get)
The softer impact of a wooden mallet provides sufficient driving force for wood cutting tools and driving pegs without causing damage to them.
I don't care what the Japanese or anyone else did a 100 years ago, that doesn't make it right.

Hello Thane,

I'm not sure, but I think you meant "striker," not "sticker," or could you explain "sticker"? The more impact, in the correct hands, with the correct knowledge is the reason hand forged metal "striking" tools have, are and will continue to be the dominate striking tool.

We try to get "new" folks to use wood/leather and/or some type of striking cap, if they do not have the strength and/or skill to use a heavier tools. Also, I called it "mushroom," for lack of wanting to call it the longer descriptor of "striking surface distortion."

I'm not trying to make anyone use tools they do not want to use, but don't also try to make what has been used, what is used and what will probably continue to be used in 60% to 70% of the place in the world that have a wood culture, wrong. It isn't, it is a manner of skill, training and normative culture. Yes your wooden mallet does provide sufficient force to work, but it does not proved efficient force to the work. That is the reason, metal/stone strikers came to be. It does not make what you are doing incorrect, nor what I do either.

Many of my tools are over a hundred years old, (most of them before someone stole them,) and my chisels, (many with original handles,) are not damaged; not that it would be a concern, since you should have the skill to replace them without much effort. Also note, that since a 90 year old Amish Barn Wright taught and gave me my hundred year old mallet, I think he might have been a little wiser than either you or I.

You are correct it doesn't make them right...but it doesn't make them wrong either. Considering that Metallurgist and Wood Working Academics are still trying to unravel the mysteries, and emulate techniques that these Master Crafts people had done a thousand years ago, with out modern technology, should be a little humbling for you and anyone trying to practice this craft. I know I have been trying humbly for 40 years, and when I am next to a "national treasure," (as they are designated,) humble is all there is to be. Diaku, or similar Craftsperson, from the Middle East through out Asia and my own Amish Barn Wright's that tried to squeeze as much as they could into my head, I try to listen...they all use metal strikers most of the time, so according to your post, they are all wrong?

Respectfully, jay

Hello,

Some old pegs taken out of some windows I've been rebuilding. How equivalent to whatever timber frame context you may have in mind I dare not say but shows the deflection and compression involved, with the intact long grain and rectilinear cross section.


And then the set of drift pins I found amongst a lot of other old stuff left here when we moved in. Could even be the very one used to set up the barn here.



The points of the drift pin driven through the mortice hole into the unmarked tenon, when oriented right with the back of the pin on the shoulder side of the hole will give a reliable and consistent indication of where to drill the hole in the tenon. If the pin should be difficult to haul back out of the assembled joint you could put a big spike through the hole there to help out. These are the standard form always used here.

Nothing wrong with using a steel hammer in chisel work, so long as both hammer and chisel are compatible.

Greetings,

Don Wagstaff

Hey Don,

Super Great Stuff!!! Talk about trip back through my own memories...those look just like the Dutch Amish one's I had given to me before they got stolen. I'm still looking for a complete set of toogijzer (draw pins,) you are so lucky to have saved those. If I can find the time, and place, I'm going to make some. I have been thinking about having John make some (John Neeman,) I'm sure he would make great ones. Thank you so much for sharing these.

You are also correct, about there other use as a "bore tell." I miss having them around for that reason as well. They mark the offset perfectly in most cases.

Regards, jay

P.S. Don, from our other discussion, you can find these in the Middle East and Asia too, if I ever get to see a set I will photo them for you...

Well Jay, I see that you have heard of John Neeman too! I've bought a few of their tools, and have been very happy so far. They do some very nice work and I've been thinking about having them make drift pins all well. They are my go to tool people!

But back to the relevant topic. You mentioned that you use metal hammers for striking your chisels as well as your pegs. I use a small metal sledge for driving pegs. I find that wooden mallets are harder on the peg (more strikes to drive= more chance of damaging the peg). It is also pretty hard on the wooden mallet.

I use a wooden mallet for striking chisels though, in the style used by Chappell. I can see the appeal of using a metal hammer with chisels. Greater weight in a smaller size leading to a more controllable amount of force applied with a minimum of strokes.
How do you avoid premature damage to the chisel handle? Avoiding damage to the handle has always been the rationale for the wooden mallets in what I have seen. I would guess that one would want a relatively soft steel for such a job? Maybe even bronze?
Perhaps avoiding chisel handle damage has more to do with striking technique and attention to detail when making one's chisel handles than choice of striking tool?
I have never really tested out the concept of the metal hammer for chisel work myself, I think I will though. To be quite honest, I was always under the impression that to strike a timber framing chisel with a metal hammer would be such an act of sacrilegious barbarity that the Timber Frame Gods would immediately cast me into a pit of seething condo framers with nail guns! I suppose I'll have to rethink that assumption...