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How does that square peg in a round hole thing work again?

Jesse Cloud

Jesse Cloud

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Placitas, NM in the foothills of the Sandia Mt
Hi all,
Should have thought this through earlier in the project, but here I am. I'm making a tabletop with breadboard ends.The tenons are integral to the top (loose tenons would have made several things easier:doh: ). The mortises are cut into the breadboard. I want to pin the breadboard through the tenons. Round pegs would be easy, but I'm thinking square pegs would look better.

How do you all do the square peg in a round hole thing? I'm thinking the easiest way would be to simply carve out maybe a 1/4 inch deep square for the square peg and use a dowel for the rest, but I'm not sure that will be strong.

Thanks in advance for your help.
 
jess you use a bniggr hammer for ther square pegs and a small one fo rthe round ones:rofl: actually get ahold of bruce page he just made some rel sharp doors not long ago and posted them on her do a search and you might get abettr answer:)
 
Larry's idea of a bigger hammer isn't that far off the mark. That's how old barns were put together, square pegs in round holes. Held like a sumabagum.
Mebbe use expanding poly glue, whack em in tight, cut tops flush and sand.
 
For furniture, I'm one of the cheaters who often uses a dowel with a square plug. On a top with a breadboard end, you're not going to see a whole lot of stress on the peg, so the relative lengths of dowel vs plug are not critical. For turning the 1/4" round hole square, I just eyeball with a 1/4" chisel, though when I worked in a shop that did A LOT of this stuff, we all had hollow mortiser chisels that would get a couple taps of a mallet to do the job quick. In theory, we were supposed to use the actual mortising machine for this, but sometimes I'd forget, or when building chairs with few flat parts, it wasn't always practical to machine it. Bear in mind though that after a few projects, the chisel won't fit back in the machine :D

Now that I think of it, in that shop we pinned the BB ends from below with a 3/16 dowel, then added decorative square plugs where ever they were desired on the top, sidestepping the whole strength question. For myself, I like the joinery details to actually be part of the joinery, but there are drawbacks.
 
The pin question came up a few days ago when I was making a cutting board. I decided to dove tail it and not pin at all. That may not be the tradition but I like the way it works.
 

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John Downey said:
For furniture, I'm one of the cheaters who often uses a dowel with a square plug. On a top with a breadboard end, you're not going to see a whole lot of stress on the peg, so the relative lengths of dowel vs plug are not critical. For turning the 1/4" round hole square, I just eyeball with a 1/4" chisel, though when I worked in a shop that did A LOT of this stuff, we all had hollow mortiser chisels that would get a couple taps of a mallet to do the job quick. In theory, we were supposed to use the actual mortising machine for this, but sometimes I'd forget, or when building chairs with few flat parts, it wasn't always practical to machine it. Bear in mind though that after a few projects, the chisel won't fit back in the machine :D

Now that I think of it, in that shop we pinned the BB ends from below with a 3/16 dowel, then added decorative square plugs where ever they were desired on the top, sidestepping the whole strength question. For myself, I like the joinery details to actually be part of the joinery, but there are drawbacks.
Click to expand...

Thanks John, Several good ideas there, except for whacking the mortiser chisels with a mallet - not my chisels!:rofl: Almost as scary as Al's 60lb sledge:eek: :eek: .

BTW, how did your truck (and your back) handle the 100 sheets of drywall?
 
Jesse Cloud said:
I liike the dovetail spline! Too late for my project, though. A question, is the dark inlay on the breadboard just for looks or is there a deeper reason?:huh:
Click to expand...
Yes, there is a deeper reason. All the cuts were made on the table saw. The spline fills the kerf where the end was ripped in half after the angles were cut.
 
Hi Jesse, we postponed the great drywall escapade til next week so we'd be sure we had all the above ceiling stuff done before starting. The vendor says about 65# per sheet incidentally, which is still awful heavy. I found an outfit thats about $1 per sheet cheaper than the borgs, so that'll pay for the gas anyhow.
 
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