Square holes for square pegs

[Gene Zimmerman]

i am refacing my the cabinets in my house, and would like to have square pegs in the corners of the drawer fronts and doors. Shaker style, you know. dont have a mortiser, and am wondering if anyone has a simple method or tool they could advise me about. thanks in advance.

[Dave Cav]

You could get an inexpensive hollow mortise chisel (HF sells them) and use it by hand (without the auger) with a mallet to square up the holes. You only need to square up the top part that's going to show; hand carve the pegs more or less round for the bulk of the length.

Or maybe this is the golden opportunity to GET a mortiser.....

[Jamie Buxton]

Fastcap makes just what you need. http://www.fastcap.com/estore/pc/Artisan-Accents-50-pieces-3p9914.htm

[Keith Outten]

JR Beal sells several sizes of broaches that might be just the ticket and they aren't expensive.

Google Beal Tools.

[Conrad Fiore]

Or you could put a square peg in a round hole.
http://www.tablelegs.com/Parts/SquarePegs.aspx

[glenn bradley]

I do it like so . . .

Drill round hole a bit smaller than desired peg:

147089

Use VERY sharp hollow mortise chisel:

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Make peg just a bit bigger than the square hole and drive home:

147091

I do this enough that I have 1/64th undersized drills and mortise chisels in a little rack near the bench:

147092

[richard poitras]

I just received an e-mail from Darrell Peart about a set of hollow Square Punches that he designed and that Lee Valley will now be selling just for the purposes you are looking for.

Richard

[Tony Joyce]

The Beall broaches (http://www.bealltool.com/products/other/broach.php) are for through holes only.

[Steve Sharp]

Find a couple of different bits that u chuck up in an old style hand brace. The bits come with 2 different size tapering square ends (for holding in the chuck). Saw off these square sections with a couple inches of the round shaft above them. To use, 1st drill a round hole slightly smaller than the peg u want to use then lightly hammer in the appropriate size of the tapered sq shaft into the hole to make the top of the opening square. Sharpen or taper the bottom of your peg before driving it in. Brian Boggs showed us this trick in his chairmaking class. (a pencil sharpener can be used to "taper the end of your peg" before you cut it to length.

[Gene Zimmerman]

thank you all for the advice. i can go from here and "getterdone"

[Floyd Mah]

i made an X-box joystick for my son recently using Greene and Greene design elements. There were a few dozen pegs in the finished project. I made a punch out of a 1/4" chisel by cutting the end square and then hollowing a concave recess, leaving sharp edges to cut the square sides. I used a drill to precut the hole and then the punch to square the sides. Incidentally, I was able to burnish the ebony peg facets using hardboard (the finished side) after an initial shaping with a Dremel tool.

[Lee Schierer]

You might want to try one of these.http://images.rockler.com/rockler/images/92058-01-200.jpg It's called a corner morticing chisel.