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Jig for pegs (trenails) for table saw

Started by Engineer, February 23, 2004, 04:43:46 PM

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Engineer

Looking for plans or ideas to build a jig so that I can cut pegs for my timberframe on the table saw.  Something that I can put a 12" long piece of roughsawn oak or locust in, index the jig and cut the pins right quick.  Any ideas?  I'd like to be able to taper the pegs if possible.

Jim_Rogers

If you cut your stock to thickness and then into squares you could then use a standard taper jig to cut them to the rough shape of a peg.
But, a word of caution, the pegs have to made of completely straight grain lumber. If they aren't then when your pounding them in they could split down a cross grain line and you won't know it as it's inside the joint.
Be very careful in selecting stock and producing taper squares.
Once you have the tapered squares made you can shape the pegs with a draw knife or a spoke shave to your desired finial shape.
We use a shaving horse to hold the peg as we shape them.
Good luck with your project.
Jim Rogers
Whatever you do, have fun doing it!
Woodmizer 1994 LT30HDG24 with 6' Bed Extension

ARKANSAWYER

    I will try to remember to take a photo tomorrow when I get back from Marshall of my jig for sawing pegs.  I use old white oak stickers and  plane them down and then make octagons with my table saw and jig.  I pull the points down with a draw knife.
ARKANSAWYER
ARKANSAWYER

FeltzE

Rip your stock parrellel to the grain and take a router with a 1/2 radius bit or routher table and round the corners I'd definitely recommend a table with a fence, hold down, and push sticks if you like your fingers.

We ripped blanks and turned them on the lathe taking about 2 minutes a piece. and used a straight edge and calpers to check dimensions.

Good luck

Eric

ARKANSAWYER

Sorry it took so long for me to get the photo's and get back on line.  Been a busy man.
  I take old stickers and chop them off to an inch or so longer then I need the pegs.  Put them in the oven while wife is at work and cook them on down  ;D  I plane them down to the size I need which most of the time is 1 inch or 3/4.  Then I run them through the table saw on my jig to make octagons out of them.  I take a small hand plane to smooth the corners off and taper the point with a draw knife.  Using car wax on the bottom and side of the jig makes it slide easy past the blade.  I adjust the rip fence for the size peg I want.


  Most old pegs I have removed were not round but octagon and if you put a dry peg in a green timber it should swell to tighten up so set it where you want it to stay.
ARKANSAWYER

Engineer

Thanks Arkansawyer, that's exactly what I needed to see.  Simple and works well.   8)

Max sawdust

Wow great archive 8)
I was turning red oak pegs.  The process is slow and the results are OK at best.  Then my lathe started acting up :o  So I needed to come up with something else and it only took me 20 min to learn how to make a jig to cut octagonal pegs on the FF.  (A few min over on the TF Guild to get my math straight and this morning after making the jig and a little set up I am churning out octagonal pegs ;D

Max
True Timbers
Cedar Products-Log & Timber Frame Building-Milling-Positive Impact Forestscaping-Cut to Order Lumber

MountainWalker

When you make the pegs using your jig and prepare them like you indicate, do you use a 1" hole or one slightly larger and if larger, what do you recommend?

Dave Shepard

I'd pay close attention to Jim's advice about the stock. Riving either eliminates, or at the very least, reveals grain runout. Pegs should also be green, so they can bend when drawpinning. A draw knife will put any taper you need on a pin in short order.
Wood-Mizer LT40HDD51-WR Wireless, Kubota L48, Honda Rincon 650, TJ208 G-S, and a 60"LogRite!

Jim_Rogers

MW:
Make your peg holes something standard line 1" and then the edges of the octagon will grab the hole and not let it rotate in place, although it wouldn't/shouldn't anyway.
There was a discussion once that if the frame rocked in the wind that turned pegs could cork-screw out of the joint.
However, during many tours of some of the Shaker villages, we saw turned pegs in holes that were 150 years old or older and they hadn't move a fraction of an inch.
I don't think that turned pegs vs octagonal pegs makes much difference in hole.

If the frame is rocking in the wind then the joints are really poor and the braces are way to short to have even been put in.....

But it's nice to think that the edges of the octagonal pegs are gripping the hole.....

Jim Rogers

Whatever you do, have fun doing it!
Woodmizer 1994 LT30HDG24 with 6' Bed Extension

Joel Eisner

I make my pegs using a plastic jig that is about 2" by 3" and fits in your wallet.  It has some numbers on it and your name which is helpful if you loose it.  The other part of my system is great website called:  http://www.pegs.us/

They have a great consistent product and are good folks to deal with.

8)
The saga of our timberframe experience continues at boothemountain.blogspot.com.

shinnlinger

I'm with Joel,

Last time I bought from Walpole it was 33cts a peg.  They were all quite nice. 

I have messed around with a jig like Arkansas sawyer (except it could do multiples at once) back in the day, but I ran it through a flatbed planer.  NOw I wonder if I could do it on my mill.  It worked fine but I buy them now.
Shinnlinger
Woodshop teacher, pasture raised chicken farmer
34 horse kubota L-2850, Turner Band Mill, '84 F-600,
living in self-built/milled timberframe home

shinnlinger

Ok,

So say you had some hardwood 1inch boards, say from that clear 5ft hunk you have sitting next to you mill that was just a little to nice to make into firewood but you haven't done anything with yet.  You set the boards on edge on a band mill and make a bunch of 1 by stickers.  Then you pull out your Arkansas jig or two but with more v grooves in it and set it on the mill deck and load up each groove with a 1x.  Drop the mill down to yeild a 1inch height and mill.  Do a side, flip the stickers and repeat.  4 passes later and you will have multiple pegs as long as your boards were.  You may need to rachet strap the ends and stop the cut just short, but you will have alot of pegs in a hurry.  take the long pegs to your chop saw and cut to whatever you want.  SOme would undoubtedly be junk due to grain angle, but the volume would easily exceed the junk I would think.

Shinnlinger
Woodshop teacher, pasture raised chicken farmer
34 horse kubota L-2850, Turner Band Mill, '84 F-600,
living in self-built/milled timberframe home

Max sawdust

I have been using the "Arky Jig" on the table saw since 04.  Quick Easy..  We will taper the tip with a draw knife prior to installation
I  use a 15/16" Wood Owl ultra smooth tri cut for boring. I make my pegs 1" face to face Octagons.

Personally do not draw bore, we strap the frame then drill with everything nice and tight.   Never had a problem with pegs breaking using air dry Quartersawn Red oak, that is straight grained without defect.  (Quartersawn wood is a good way to insure you are you are staying with the grain.. Ya see the flake you know you are with the grain.)

I do feel that riving is much more fun.. Anytime people will pay me to work wood with hand tools I am happy ;)
True Timbers
Cedar Products-Log & Timber Frame Building-Milling-Positive Impact Forestscaping-Cut to Order Lumber

Engineer

Y'know, I started this thread almost five years ago now, and had forgotten all about it until MountainWalker posted to it. 

I must confess, I wound up not making my own peg stock.  I found a company that sells specialty wood products, unfortunately they do not sell retail so I had to buy wholesale through a middleman, but I got octagonal peg stock in hickory ranging from 5-12' lengths, and cut them to length on the chopsaw.  Yes, there was some waste from grain runout, but all in all, it was some pretty straight stock and worked out well.  One of the guys that worked on my frame built a jig to taper the end of each peg for drawbore.

Funny thing about the peg stock.  I bought 1000 feet of it.  When I got the order, it was wrapped in bundles of about 40 pieces each.  I set up my saw with a stop block and started cutting, and was a little ways into the third or fourth bundle when I realized something was really strange about the pegs I was cutting.  They were very lightweight, a darker color than the past couple bundles, and somewhat 'fuzzy'.  Turns out somebody at the mill had mistakenly fed some butternut boards into the molder and I wound up with two full bundles of butternut pegs.  What to do, what to do?  I got a credit for them from the supplier but I still have them all.  No way they were strong enough to put in the frame.

So if anybody wants some butternut pegs (14" long and drawbore taper) or a bunch of octagonal butternut stock that you could probably use for chair spindles, stair balusters, run them through a doweling machine, etc.  let me know.   I haven't come up with a good use for them yet.   ::) :-\

james

Engineer re: the butternut pegs they might make good shaker pegs for hanging clothes etc. on
james

robbshowe

Hi Jon

Could you let me know who it was you managed to buy your hickory rods from please.  I have been having a hard time buying 1" parallel oak pegs in the UK.  Your help would be appreciated.


Meadows Miller

Gday

I've done both ways octagon on the table saw with a jig a little like Ary's but since 00 I've done all mine out of Ironbark on the wood lathe  ;) it only takes about 2 to 3 min ea to do a taper'ed 12 to14" long peg  ;D ;D 8)

Chris
4TH Generation Timbergetter

barbender

I made a tablesaw jig once to put tenons on the end of rails for log furniture, basically it was a lathe you fed through the saw, tuning the stock as you fed it. Blade height detemined the diameter of the tenon. No reason you couldn't make something along the same lines for dowels. It's kind of like Lathe-mizer for a table saw, if I understand the way the Lathe-mizer works. I've never seen one in operation.
Too many irons in the fire

Daver

I like the jig up above.. I didn't use a jig I just cut them free hand on the table saw, a little over 1" then just turned them up against the fence.. probably not the recommended way but it worked for me.. If I had to do it again I would used the wooden jig up above but maybe attach a clamp on the jig to hold down the dowel. Or hold down a piece of wood that holds down the dowel.
"Remember, amateurs made the ark, professionals built the Titanic."

mark davidson

Re: butternut pegs,
I recently took down an 1800's barn that had all pine pegs.

rjwoelk

So if you cut a 1x1 on a table saw. Then set your blade at a 45. Then run them through again. One may need to do a little adjusting to get the size right.
Lt15 palax wood processor,3020 JD 7120 CIH 36x72 hay shed for workshop coop tractor with a duetz for power plant

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