Shaping Small Pegs - Method?

glenn bradley

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I am making some walnut pegs for a small cherry box. I take the 3/16" square blanks and work them on an inverted plane with a stop to get the rough shape. I then chuck them in the DP and go at them with a file to get a round peg with a square top.

So I'm working away and I'm thinking "Somebody has got to have a better idea than this". Any help out there?

Shape-Pegs-2-1.jpg

The pegs will be driven in the last little bit with a bit of glue, sawn off and sanded down. The piece of cherry in the pic is the thickness of my stock. The peg will extend into another piece mounted at a right angle to the face piece (that would be one side of the box attached to the other as in a pegged, butted corner joint).

TIA,

Glenn
 
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My only 1/8" is a ground down bucks bros that a friend gave me, so I can't help there. One day I'll get some good ones.

I tend to do this sort of thing with a hollow chisel from a mortiser, if not with the mortiser itself. 'Course its not worth banging up the blunt end if you don't do a lot of these, since it then won't fit in the mortiser anymore. Still, with a chinese bit, you're out less than a midling chisel even if the bit becomes a hand tool.
 
Glenn, it may be a little rough, but if you make several extra and discard those that aren't good - how about drilling a 3/16" hole in a piece of steel, [from the other side of the steel drill partway through a little bigger, say 13/64] then pound the square peg through until you have the amount of square end you want.

I made a dowel plate like this, but drive the wood all the way through for my own fully round pegs.

Your technique looks to me to give finer results than mine. But I've found that as long as I can pick and choose from a surplus of pegs, it does well.
 
Check with Roy Underhill of Antique tooldom fame. (The Woodwright's Shop) He once had on his show a series about dowel making where he had drilled a larger hole most of the way through a piece of steel and then a hole the size that he wanted. He would cut the stock to approximate size and shape and then pound the stock through the holes and shear the edges to produce a dowel. Crude but effective.
 
illustration of tools and technique

Here's my shop-made dowel plate. I used the numbering system of augers, each digit refers to the number of 16ths. This was easier than stamping fractions for me.

next is a 3/16" square I cut with the bandsaw.

final rough result.

sorry for the blurry pictures.
 

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Glenn, how about a little home made jig for a router? All you need is a simple block of wood to mount to the base of your router or on a router table. I do it with the WoodRat but you could do this with even a trim router. If you want I'll make a sketch for you. It would be easier to understand than my babbling.
 
Glenn, how about a little home made jig for a router? All you need is a simple block of wood to mount to the base of your router or on a router table. I do it with the WoodRat but you could do this with even a trim router. If you want I'll make a sketch for you. It would be easier to understand than my babbling.

I should have thought of that. I made my own round lip-topped bench dogs. These are about the same just real small with square heads. What a dork.
 
Hey Glenn,
This isn't exactly an answer to your question, but an alternative to consider. What some folk do is to fasten the parts with a dowel, then make a square "countersink" and fill that with a square plug.

There was an article in Fine Woodworking a few months back where the author used square keystock (available for 50 cents or so at the hardware store) as a punch to square off a round hole. No structural support, but sure is easy....
 
Hey Glenn,
This isn't exactly an answer to your question, but an alternative to consider. What some folk do is to fasten the parts with a dowel, then make a square "countersink" and fill that with a square plug.

There was an article in Fine Woodworking a few months back where the author used square keystock (available for 50 cents or so at the hardware store) as a punch to square off a round hole. No structural support, but sure is easy....

Excellent suggestion Jesse, thanks.
 
Heck, even I've got a lathe...

never use it though :D:D:D

I was going to say the same thing. The crazy part is, I use a lathe all day long at work. Of course its an engine lathe.:rofl:

That's what I need in my shop, for some reason the cutting edge does not seem to get caught as much when it is always centered on the work and moves in a consistent, constant feed with a very sharp carbide insert. All I can say with a wood lathe is, BEWARE of the Skew!!
 
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