I was building timber trusses for the likes of #8man's new,(at the time), home in Vaquero among many others, when I first learned of draw-boring, hand-hewing and many other cool technics. For those who don't know what a draw-bore is or how it works, I'll explain in brief, as it's really simple.
Back in the day of our grandsfathers' grandfathers, they would often build building from timbers. They had to be fastened tightly together with more security than simple nails,(which is what industry had available for us at the time.) Timbers are way to heavy to depend on nails and/or adhesives. So they used the draw-bore. Goes like this....
Locate "keeper" pegs to lock the tennon into the mortis once assembled.
Bore 3/4" - 1" through-hole, in the mortis through both sides of the pocket.
Assemble the mortis and tennon union, strapped rather snuggly and well shouldered.
Mark the tennon, through the bore-hole in the mortis.
Blow it back apart.
Re-mark center of hole in tennon, 1/64" - 1/32" ( depending on species), away from previously marked center, back toward the shouldering of the tennon.
Then assemble the joint again and drive the peg into place. Make sure your keeper-peg is eased all the way around the protruding edge brfore attempting the drive.
This causes the dowel peg to grab the tennon from the interior of its relocated hole and pull it tight to the shoulder of the union. There are barns with many many tons of oak standing over-head with no adhesives, no metal fasteners of any type, built hundreds of years ago.....and still standing today. it's not just the wood that's good, it's the innovative joinery as well.
Skip forward to a mere hundred years ago and we find another technic for using the draw-bore application, in UK. This one uses a square peg, driven into a round hole and is much faster easier and fool-proof, (which i need😶). I wonder if this is where we got the expression, square peg round hole.
Iconic bright red, British phone booth or kiosk as "they" call it. A retired U.S. Airforce couple purchased an antique K6, (second gen,) complete phone kiosk from a vendor in Houston last year and brought me the door earlier this year asking if i would reproduce it for them, as the current one was rotted considerably in places. UK has been selling off these iconic kiosks for decades now. As iconic as they are, there's simply no use for hundreds of thousands of them anymore. And they value space on there island. Understandable.
I of course, being The Carpenter in The Carpenter's Woodshop, said, "YES! and I'll do it just like they did. We'll keep it authentic as possible". I had noticed the square pegs in the stiles, (it's a simple door. 2stiles 2rails and a 24 lite,cast iron mullion assembly.), all skewed about 18º or so, in the same direction. But i honestly had NO CLUE why! Well, I trusted myself that I would figure it out before assembly and all will go well anyway.
It has been determined that the mortis and tennon work was all done with a chain mortiser, which i've used before, doing timber construction, I have not a chain mortiser and my buddy who does, has a shop that is consistantly tied up with extreme high-end projects, so i decided to do all the mortis work by hand. So, the other day i was chopping away at the mortises and it came to me suddenly. Ya see, I had also noticed that the part of the original door had dissasembled very easily, driving the square pegs out of the holes, in 1 piece even, there seemed to be zero evidence of any adhesive used. I ALSO noticed that although the pegs were still relatively square after nearly 100 years(it pre-dates 1939), the holes in the tennons were actually ROUND! like WhAt!? Then as Hephaestus landed a magical blow inside a motis pocket, He spoke to me with distinction saying, "Draw-bore, duh...."
The slight skew to the positioning of the bore to the stile edge, gives instant exhibition of Newton's law of Double-Occupancy, when the peg reaches the round hole in the tennon. The wood on the tennon, as well as the peg, compress and allow for entrance to passage and in turn, transmits that energy force back to the tennon itself, pulling the rail securly tight to the shoulder. Freakishly amazing and simple! So i did a very rough sample test piece with drops from the stile and rail parts. I was crazy impressed with the result. As if it had been glued and clamped over night. That's how tight, my loose fitting, poorly done test piece came out. Then i dowsed the end of the square peg, on the back side of the mortis, with water and let it set i bit. Then again for a little bit more. There are still 4 tiny little pin-size holes showing around the square peg where the corners had been compressed, on the other side and i will fill them on the door, with white oak splinters before final surfacing. Or actually i think I'll just adjust the cantoring (skewing) of the square holes in the mortises to give less compression to the corners of the peg and still give enough resistence to secure the parts to their shoulders. Then when I do the water dowsing, it will likely swell all the way back up to original size. I've been water dowsing wood for decades in the trade, usually to fix an impact wound, as to not have to replace the damaged part.
ANYWAY........I thank y'all for reading this and i look forward to any comments and feedback. I hope you've enjoyed the read.
Peace,
-Ric
I would like to see this in a demonstration sometime.