Drawboring pegs?

[Mike Holbrook]

I have several projects that use drawbored pegs for various joints. I have drawbore pins and just ordered the Lee Valley set for making imperial dowels. The information i have read suggests splitting small pieces along the grain line to use for these pins. My question has to do with species of wood that are appropriate to make these pins from. Is it best to search out straight grained pieces of hardwood of specific species to use for these or is it acceptable to use scraps from the project at hand. I wonder if there would be enough difference in various wood shrinkage/hardness to make a particular wood peg type incompatible with whatever project wood I am using? Would a wood like white oak be acceptable to make pegs from for most projects? I have a rough block of Ash, just not sure if I can find any straight grain in it. I suppose one can split most wood in whatever direction the wood grain moves in and wind up with relatively straight grain.

Watching Kingshotts DVD on making mortises and tenons, he mentions that one of the first jobs for any apprentice use to be to keep a supply of drawbore pins available for all the woodworkers. This comment and the relatively sturdy looking large oak drawbore pin he shows from, HMS Victory, got me thinking about laying in a supply of pins for projects. In his video Frank Klausz whittles his drawbore pin by hand with a chisel in about 15 seconds.

[Jessica Pierce-LaRose]

I'll let others with more experience comment on the suitability of various woods.

Straight grain seems most important, in experience, to make a peg that will drive in without splitting. The more your offset is, the more this is important. When a peg splits on it's way in, it quickly becomes a hassle, particularly if you have a blind hole.

The other thing I've heard is that you're peg should be the driest stock in the project - that way the other wood shrinks around the peg, rather than the peg shrinking, a similar concept to chair legs in seats, I suppose. Although with the offset in the holes, I doubt the peg would fall out entirely.

For tiny tiny drawbores, I've used bamboo skewers or chopsticks, but finding a good one (one that's straight enough it's not going to break in insertion) can be tough.

Depending on how touch the wood you're drawboring is in comparison to the wood of the pegs, having perfectly made dowels is less important - using oak pegs in my poplar bench base, the pegs deformed the wood to fit, so as long as my holes weren't larger than the dowels, having round dowels didn't matter as much.

[Hilton Ralphs]

I recall that white oak is what the old timers used.

Take a good read at Peter Follansbee's Blog (http://pfollansbee.wordpress.com/tag/drawboring/)on drawboring.

[Mike Holbrook]

Good link Hilton, lots of pictures of old pins in actual joints. The blogger seems to feel that exact shape is not as important as the peg filling the entire hole, preferably on both sides of a through joint. Unfortunately most of these illustrations are of joints made with older tools than I have. I think some of the splits he shows are due to edges of pegs catching in corners left by older bits. It may be that more exactly made holes and pegs will tend to cause splitting even more, like a round awl splitting thin wood worse than a birdcage awl. I'm still trying to get these ideas inGRAINed in my head so I don't wind up causing splits along my grain lines.

Maybe I need to hunt up some straight grained white oak and make a supply. Making the pegs in advance should give them time to get good and dry before they are used.

[Hilton Ralphs]

If you have a dowel maker (Veritas or LN) or a piece of steel that you can drill a hole through it, then perhaps just make up a batch of round pegs.

[Trevor Walsh]

I've used red Oak, and Ash for pins. In my workbench, bed head and foot boards and for some other random odd drawbored joints. First I split out the rough pegs as squares a little oversized and whittle an end to a point. Then I beat them through the dowel plate to get a peg. It is important that they are dry. The properties I'd identify as useful in a wood are strong in shear, able to be driven (aka not maple), straight even grained, no knots and dry. Any of the oaks, ash, beech, dogwood, birch, hickory would probably do fine. I know in timber framed construction oak is used almost exclusively.

[Trevor Walsh]

You want the wood dry, BEFORE it is turned into a peg, otherwise the peg will be smaller than it's supposed to be. If you're desiring 3/8" pegs and have green or slightly dry wood I'd split out billets about 1/2 to 9/16 square, let them dry then process them into pegs.

[Chris Vandiver]

I've used red Oak, and Ash for pins. In my workbench, bed head and foot boards and for some other random odd drawbored joints. First I split out the rough pegs as squares a little oversized and whittle an end to a point. Then I beat them through the dowel plate to get a peg. It is important that they are dry. The properties I'd identify as useful in a wood are strong in shear, able to be driven (aka not maple), straight even grained, no knots and dry. Any of the oaks, ash, beech, dogwood, birch, hickory would probably do fine. I know in timber framed construction oak is used almost exclusively.

The best wood for pegs in timber framing are Black Locust.

[Jessica Pierce-LaRose]

I've wondered, dealing with the small amounts of wood one is for pegs in drawbores, if it's the sort of thing we could "kiln dry" in a home oven or something?

[Mel Fulks]

I worked three years for a guy who has a well deserved reputation in historic restoration,all of our doors were mortise and tenon (no glue) and pegged with lopsided octagonal pegs. But he would NOT USE A DRAWBORE ! We had to clamp them! He never had any problem with my work EXCEPT my pegs were always too lop sided or too symmetrical ! I'm a failure.

[Chuck Nickerson]

I've wondered, dealing with the small amounts of wood one is for pegs in drawbores, if it's the sort of thing we could "kiln dry" in a home oven or something?

What I've done (in the three whole projects that I drawbored) was to run the peg stock through a dowel plate hole one size too large, dry it in a toaster oven, then run the peg through the final hole. I did this just before assembly. Worked great for me.

[Kurt Cady]

In my bench I used oak dowels. Just picked the straightest grain. I think I used 1/2". No failures

[Mike Holbrook]

Good ideas guys. The Lee Valley dowel making kit looks like a great, easy way to make dowels/pegs. The kit has a plate that fits over a dog hole on a bench and accepts a multitude of different diameter A2 steel inserts. Mine is on the way so I will have the chance to try it out soon.

I think I will shop around in the shorts at my wood supplier the next time I get out there and see if I can find boards with straight grain that I can saw pieces from to split. Maybe I can locate a few lighter and darker woods so the pegs will match project woods better.

The toaster oven sounds like a great way to make sure the peg shrinks less than the wood around it, just don't alert my wife about this one.

[Jeff Bartley]

I use our regular oven to dry peg stock, set at it's lowest temp (160). After a couple hours in there I wax them, let them cool, then put them in a sealed jar so they don't absorb any moisture. When I did timber frame work pegs were always stored in a sealed plastic bag.
And I can add that there's nothing like driving a drawbore peg into a joint and watching it the shoulders draw in.....it's usually my favorite part of a project!

[Jessica Pierce-LaRose]

And I can add that there's nothing like driving a drawbore peg into a joint and watching it the shoulders draw in.....it's usually my favorite part of a project!

True that! The first time I did it, I thought the joints were good, but that slight pulling made things perfect!

[Mike Holbrook]

Studying the links Hilton provided and actual pegs in an antique the wife has, I can see that it is not uncommon for the wood around the drawbore hole to split. Any hints about how to prevent this from occurring? The splitting issue seems to be the major challenge with this joint.

[Jim Koepke]

Studying the links Hilton provided and actual pegs in an antique the wife has, I can see that it is not uncommon for the wood around the drawbore hole to split. Any hints about how to prevent this from occurring? The splitting issue seems to be the major challenge with this joint.

My use of this joint is limited so this is only theory. One expression comes to mind, "the offset should be about the thickness of a worn half Shilling."

Maybe some woodworkers make the offset overly fat causing stress which displays itself by splitting.

Usually after the part about "a worn half Shilling," everyone comes up empty to the question of, "how thick is a worn half Shilling?"

I usually go with about 1/32" for a 3/8" bore.

One also must be careful if using tapered pegs to stop before stressing the pieces.

jtk

[Hilton Ralphs]

I can see that it is not uncommon for the wood around the drawbore hole to split. Any hints about how to prevent this from occurring? The splitting issue seems to be the major challenge with this joint.

I think if you position the pegs with the grain perpendicular to the grain in the work piece then any cross grain expansion on behalf of the peg will not adversely affect the work piece. The the splitting is probably more common when different species of pegs are used to that of the work piece.

[Jack Curtis]

Good ideas guys. The Lee Valley dowel making kit looks like a great, easy way to make dowels/pegs. The kit has a plate that fits over a dog hole on a bench and accepts a multitude of different diameter A2 steel inserts. Mine is on the way so I will have the chance to try it out soon. ...

Kingshott used a chisel to make his peg.

[Chris Griggs]

Kingshott used a chisel to make his peg.

What kind of chisel, Jack? Japanese or Western:p

Sorry, I'm just being a dink...ignore me.

[Trevor Walsh]

I'm just going by a book I have that specifies oak, but the locust makes sense to me. I would guess that the author used oak because many of his frames were principally or totally oak, so offcuts would be handy in that species from other projects.

[Chris Griggs]

What about hickory? How would that work for pegs? I have some around but it has a lot of defects so its not much good for anything other than things like pegs and small shop projects.

[Mike Holbrook]

Jack, in his DVD Kingshott roughs out his pin/peg with a chisel then drives it through a dowel plate.

I think the text I read suggested that the older drill bits often left a rough spot in the drilled hole, apparently a corner left on the hand made pin might catch in the rough spot and wedge the wood fibers apart causing a split, just like a wedge does.

[Brian Kerley]

I drawbore all my MT joints, only because my tenons tend to be on the looser side.

I've used premade dowels and it works just fine.

But, for those times that I've made my own pegs, I cut off about a 3-4" piece of a board (used white oak and maple with success). Stood the cut-off up on my bench, stood a chisel up on end on the board and split off a piece. Then I split that down again in half to get a squarish peg. Used the chisel to whittle down the end and then drove it through my dowel plate.

[Jack Curtis]

What kind of chisel, Jack? Japanese or Western:p

Sorry, I'm just being a dink...ignore me.

Kingshott had mostly converted to using Japanese at the time of the video.

[Jack Curtis]

Jack, in his DVD Kingshott roughs out his pin/peg with a chisel then drives it through a dowel plate.

I think the text I read suggested that the older drill bits often left a rough spot in the drilled hole, apparently a corner left on the hand made pin might catch in the rough spot and wedge the wood fibers apart causing a split, just like a wedge does.

Maybe it's time to rewatch the dvd's. As to rough spots, all you need do is chamfer the leading edge.

[Jessica Pierce-LaRose]

FWIW, I use a pencil sharpener to chamfer the front of my drawbore pegs to aide in driving them in although in larger ones, I taper 'em a bit too.

[Mike Holbrook]

I also noticed that Kingshott used a single peg/pin in his demo vs the doubles I frequently see used in projects. I wonder if he did it just to make the DVD move faster or if that is his normal way of making them. I don't think he commented about it on the DVD. I have seen quite a few splits running between the double drawbores I have seen. The antique chest the wife has, has splits running between several of the double drawbores in the chest and door frames. I'm not sure what the wood is but it seems prone to splitting as there are splits in several boards too. A poster above (Mel) mentions that a restoration shop he worked at would not let him make drawbores, sounds like they pegged straight holes?

I guess the doubles tighten things up more evenly without having to worry about things being centered as perfectly, whereas the single pin may reduce the risk of splits. Mel mentions clamping, maybe clamping would provide a certain amount of firmness in the joint without the offset hole trick? I suspect the condition and species of a particular piece of wood might determine which method might be appropriate.

[Frank Pratt]

Sorry, double post

[Frank Pratt]

I needed 32 pins for my workbench base & didn't really want to make them so I bought some 1/2" white oak dowel from Lee Valley. They advertise that it is precision stuff & it was exactly 1/2" in diameter & straight grained enough that there was only about 25% waste. I chamfered the ends & used a large hammer to drive them into the hard maple base.


I made up several test mortise & tenon joints & drilled the holes at various offsets. The joints were then glued, pinned & allowed to dry. Then I dissected each one to see the results. The optimum hole offset seemed to be 3/32"


The joints came together super tight with no splitting.

[Mike Holbrook]

I was working on a bill of materials for a German Work Box, a rolling tool chest. The plan uses the Miller Dowel System to hold 3/4" plywood butt joints together. It got me wondering how Miller Dowels might compare to drawboring, biscuit joiners and plane old dowels?

[Chris Vandiver]

What the heck are Miller dowels?? Drawboring has nothing to do with biscuits or doweling.

[Jessica Pierce-LaRose]

Miller dowels are those stepped glue dowels. I believe they're ribbed and compressed like modern glue dowels as well.

EDIT: here's some Miller dowels at Lee Valley. (http://www.leevalley.com/us/wood/page.aspx?c=&cat=1,250,43217&p=48301) I know Tom Fidgen uses these a lot.

But I agree with Chris, dowelling and drawboring are really different techniques, although there are some similarities. Drawboring really shines for me in that I basically don't need clamps for assembly.

[Mike Holbrook]

Granted Miller Dowels are often used for butt joints…..not drawboring. I was thinking about Kingshott's drawbore he makes in his mortise and tenon DVD. He used a single hole and pin, which got me interested in whether or not the single pin might substantially reduce the chance of a split occurring and I am thinking Miller Dowels might also reduce splitting. I am also wondering, aside from drawboring, how sturdy any joint made with Miller Dowels is. The stepped sides, horizontal grooves and compressed, dried wood might have some advantages over other commercial joining pegs, dowels, biscuits….If Miller Dowels serve more purposes than drawbore pegs maybe it makes sense to stock and use them instead of drawboring pegs, commerical pegs, biscuits….

I started wondering about using Miller Dowels vs pegs in drawbore holes. One of the features of the Miller Dowels is they do not start compressing wood until they get close to bottoming out in their hole, less non productive pressure means less chance of a split right? The Miller Dowels are tapered so they should grab an offset hole better. Most of the discussion I see involves making a taper on the end of the pegs used to grab the offset hole in a drawbore. Why not use a peg that is manufactured with taper and a bit designed to make a hole to fit it?

I think the increasing size of the Miller Dowel will tighten the joint up without having to apply as much pressure to the peg or the hole it is in. The tapered bits that are part of the system, if used to make the drawbore hole, would make a hole that is smaller in the tenon, serving to force the tenon deeper into the mortise with less offset. Just driving the tapered Miller Dowells deeper into the tapered holes made by the tapered bit has to tighten the joint a certain amount doesn't it? The peg and the hole are manufactured to match exactly so there is less gap at the top and bottom of the hole and no sharp corners to split the wood. I believe the wood in the Miller Dowels is designed to stand up to more pressure than a regular dowel. Aren't the stepped sides and groves in the sides of Miller Dowels made to make purchase against the tapered holes made by the tapered bit without splitting either the peg or the wood they are placed in?