The Four Horsemen

On Thu, 14 Nov 2013 21:04:10 -0500, Radey Shouman
wrote:

Phil W Lee writes:

Radey Shouman considered Tue, 12 Nov 2013
21:55:18 -0500 the perfect time to write:

John B. writes:

On Tue, 12 Nov 2013 19:36:12 +0000 (UTC), David Scheidt
wrote:

John B. wrote:
:On Mon, 11 Nov 2013 20:21:09 -0500, Radey Shouman
wrote:

:John B. writes:
:
: On Mon, 11 Nov 2013 10:43:49 -0500, Radey Shouman
: wrote:
:
:Frank Krygowski writes:
:
: On Sunday, November 10, 2013 6:50:58 PM UTC-5, Radey Shouman wrote:
: Sir Ridesalot writes:
:
: I believe it was Quakers who when building wooden ships used square
: pegs in round holes because that stopped the peg from twisting loose
: in use. So, sometimes even a square peg in a round hole is useful.
:
: Not just Quakers, surely. Treenails were standard practice. I have
: read that the non-native black locust trees in my area were originally
: introduced to provide treenail stock.
:
: Here are some pictures and video:
:
: http://www.boat-building.org/learn-s...ood/treenails/
:
: Those certainly look round to me.
:
:The head ends are left square, and the corners are driven into whatever
:is being fastened. I would be amazed if Quakers or anyone else drove
:full-length square pegs into round holes.
:
: Why in the world would one want to leave a square head on a round peg.
: Beside I don't think that you are envisioning just how treenails were
: installed... The ends of the treenail were slotted and after driving
: into place wedges were driven into the end of the treenail to lock it
: in place.
:
:Why would anyone put a flat head on a nail? So it doesn't go all the way
:into the hole. The corners bite into the hole, keeping it in place
:before wedges are driven into each end. After that the protruding ends
:can be cut off.
:
:I don't have to envision it, because I can watch the nice video of a guy
:who apparently does it for a living:
:
:http://www.boat-building.org/learn-s...ood/treenails/
:
:It's really pretty entertaining.

:All I can say that I've spent time examining the remains of schooners
:built in the early 1900's, I spent quite a bit of time helping with
:the rebuilding of a 60 ft. wooden fishing boat under the supervision
f a wooden boat builder that was born in 1890 and spent his life
:building traditional Maine wooden boats, I've build a boat or two
:myself, and I've never seen a treenail with a square head.

Before about 1820, no treenails were round. They were square, the
better grade hexaganal ("eight square"). The engine lathe made it
possible to make round treenails, which are markedly inferior. (So
much so that using round treenails increased the cost of insuring a
ship, or made it impossible to do so.) The advantage of a square or
hex treenail is that it will go into a hole rather smaller than the
treenail, which greatly increases the holding force it exerts. None
of these were expanded with wedges, which is a slip shod technique.


Well, as I previously said, my grandfather's barn was built with
mortise-tenon joints holding the post and beams together and the
joints were pinned with treenails. and they were essentially round,
and I doubt that barn builders in the 1700's had a lathe set up at the
building site to make the pins.

Almost any pin can restrain a mortise and tenon joint; all the forces
are perpendicular to the grain of the pin. That is, there is no force
trying to extract the pin.

Treenails are something different; they have to sustain forces parallel
to the grain.

And I might add, that I've certainly seen masts and spars on the USS
Constitution (built in 1794) that were round. Long skinny round things
they were. If a lathe was necessary to make them it must have been a
big one.

The Constitution has (obviously) been repeatedly re-rigged. They were
working on it last time I saw it, a couple of years ago. Many of the
tools in use looked pretty modern to me, but I did not see any oversized
lathes.

How do you think they made jousting lances?
And how long ago was that?

I don't know, but I would be amazed if they were turned on a lathe. I
would guess they were split from logs of the appropriate length and then
shaved into shape. Grain runout would obviously be a very bad thing.

Another interesting case are the many thousands of arrows that were
required for campaigns in the long bow era. These were made in an
assembly line fashion, each arrow being worked on serially by several
craftsmen.

I think that was mainly a British scheme because of the high rate of
fire of the long bowmen. But not only a production line but they made
various types of arrows. the Mary Rose salvage turned up arrows in
lengths ranging from 28 to 32 inches, various types of shafts and
types of head. Obviously warfare was highly technical even then :-)

One of the problems with trying to re-create a lot of things
accurately for things like experimental archaeology and re-enactments
is that wood lathes of the length used for exactly that purpose just
don't exist anymore.
Mind you, that pales into insignificance compared to the fact that we
don't manage our woodlands to produce suitable wood these days.
--
Cheers,

John B.

On Thu, 14 Nov 2013 21:14:49 -0500, Radey Shouman
wrote:

David Scheidt writes:

John B. wrote:
:On Tue, 12 Nov 2013 19:36:12 +0000 (UTC), David Scheidt
wrote:

:
:Before about 1820, no treenails were round. They were square, the
:better grade hexaganal ("eight square"). The engine lathe made it
:possible to make round treenails, which are markedly inferior. (So
:much so that using round treenails increased the cost of insuring a
:ship, or made it impossible to do so.) The advantage of a square or
:hex treenail is that it will go into a hole rather smaller than the
:treenail, which greatly increases the holding force it exerts. None
:of these were expanded with wedges, which is a slip shod technique.
:

:Well, as I previously said, my grandfather's barn was built with
:mortise-tenon joints holding the post and beams together and the
:joints were pinned with treenails. and they were essentially round,
:and I doubt that barn builders in the 1700's had a lathe set up at the
:building site to make the pins.

A barn is not a boat. And the pin used in a cross bored mortise and
tenon joint isn't the same as a treenail tused to fasten planks in
place.

:And I might add, that I've certainly seen masts and spars on the USS
:Constitution (built in 1794) that were round. Long skinny round things
:they were. If a lathe was necessary to make them it must have been a
:big one.

What's a spar got to do with a treenail? Other than 'wood, on ships'?

he
http://www.boatdesign.net/forums/att...0.16.27-am.png

Taht's a picture from Essex. Maybe Massachusetts did things
differently than Maine, but I wouldn't bet on it. Clearly, square
heads.

Nice picture. Here's a link that connects to some discussion:

http://www.boatdesign.net/forums/woo...s-37071-3.html


Well here is a site that shows exactly what I've been talking about,
in some detail.
http://penobscotmarinemuseum.org/pbh...ng-wooden-ship

But having vindicated myself (:-) I also found

www.fao.org/docrep/019/i3282e/i3282e01.pdf
which describes a totally different technique where the treenail has a
long tapered head and the drilled holes are "countersunk" with a
special tool to fit this taper. then the treenail is hammered in and
wedged on the inside.

--
Cheers,

John B.

On Thu, 14 Nov 2013 20:33:29 -0800 (PST), Frank Krygowski
wrote:

On Thursday, November 14, 2013 10:21:11 PM UTC-5, John B. wrote:
And "modern" practices would have long
made obsolete the mortise and tenon joints in timbers although they
were still being used in Indonesian 30 years ago, just like by
Granddad's barn - mortise and tenon joint with a pin to hold it
together.

Across the street from my good friend's house in NE Ohio, a small barn (or really, huge garage) is being built by some local Amish company. The framing is all classic mortise, tenon and wooden pegs. I visited when the framework was done but still uncovered. Quite beautiful, in its way.

BTW, the pegs are all cylindrical, no square heads that I remember.

- Frank Krygowski

Back in the 1950's I was in Japan and the Japanese were building a
typical Japanese wooden house near the base and I used to go past
almost every day. First there were a bunch of timber laying on the
site. Next a bunch of guys were there working away. Days went by and
from the road it was just a pile of sawn timber and people busily
doing something,

Then one day the house was up, totally framed. What they had done was
cut all the house timbers to size and made the mortise and tenon joint
while the timbers were laying on the ground. Putting it up than was a
matter of Tenon A goes into mortise A1 and hammer in the peg.

I expect that was the way they did it "in the old days" as there are
all kind of stories about "barn raising's" that seemed to indicate it
was pretty much a one day affair.
--
Cheers,

John B.

On Thu, 14 Nov 2013 20:38:26 -0800 (PST), Frank Krygowski
wrote:

On Thursday, November 14, 2013 10:38:44 PM UTC-5, John B. wrote:
On Thu, 14 Nov 2013 19:07:35 +0000, Phil W Lee
wrote:

Try turning a wooden lance on a metal lathe and it'll bounce aroun
all over the place.

You do just as they do with long metal shafts. You use a "steady
rest".

Or "follower rest."

(Note: I don't know anything about making wooden lances, but I do know some things about metal lathes.)

- Frank Krygowski

Yes, either might be used. I worked at an oil base in Northern Sumatra
where the Indonesian National Oil company had built a marine service
site. Dry dock and all. the machine shop had a lathe that had at least
a 20 ft - perhaps longer as it ran all the way down the back wall of
the building. I was getting something made and the carriage was all
the way at the head stock end and they were turning wooden bowls :-)
There were several steady rests bolted to the ways. I asked the guy if
he ever used "all the lathe" and he said never :-)
--
Cheers,

John B.

John B. wrote:
:Well here is a site that shows exactly what I've been talking about,
:in some detail.
:http://penobscotmarinemuseum.org/pbh...ng-wooden-ship

:But having vindicated myself (:-) I also found

do note the treenails they show are not round.

:www.fao.org/docrep/019/i3282e/i3282e01.pdf
:which describes a totally different technique where the treenail has a
:long tapered head and the drilled holes are "countersunk" with a
:special tool to fit this taper. then the treenail is hammered in and
:wedged on the inside.

There were no doubt as many ways to build boats as there were yards
building them.

--
sig 70

John B. writes:

On Thu, 14 Nov 2013 21:14:49 -0500, Radey Shouman
wrote:

David Scheidt writes:

John B. wrote:
:On Tue, 12 Nov 2013 19:36:12 +0000 (UTC), David Scheidt
wrote:

:
:Before about 1820, no treenails were round. They were square, the
:better grade hexaganal ("eight square"). The engine lathe made it
:possible to make round treenails, which are markedly inferior. (So
:much so that using round treenails increased the cost of insuring a
:ship, or made it impossible to do so.) The advantage of a square or
:hex treenail is that it will go into a hole rather smaller than the
:treenail, which greatly increases the holding force it exerts. None
:of these were expanded with wedges, which is a slip shod technique.
:

:Well, as I previously said, my grandfather's barn was built with
:mortise-tenon joints holding the post and beams together and the
:joints were pinned with treenails. and they were essentially round,
:and I doubt that barn builders in the 1700's had a lathe set up at the
:building site to make the pins.

A barn is not a boat. And the pin used in a cross bored mortise and
tenon joint isn't the same as a treenail tused to fasten planks in
place.

:And I might add, that I've certainly seen masts and spars on the USS
:Constitution (built in 1794) that were round. Long skinny round things
:they were. If a lathe was necessary to make them it must have been a
:big one.

What's a spar got to do with a treenail? Other than 'wood, on ships'?

he
http://www.boatdesign.net/forums/att...0.16.27-am.png

Taht's a picture from Essex. Maybe Massachusetts did things
differently than Maine, but I wouldn't bet on it. Clearly, square
heads.

Nice picture. Here's a link that connects to some discussion:

http://www.boatdesign.net/forums/woo...s-37071-3.html


Well here is a site that shows exactly what I've been talking about,
in some detail.
http://penobscotmarinemuseum.org/pbh...ng-wooden-ship


Interesting site. They show treenails being rounded by pounding them
through a hole in a thick steel plate (like a large dowel plate).
Although this has certainly been done, it's a modern innovation. Thick
steel plates were not available back in the days of the Constitution.



--

On Thu, 14 Nov 2013 07:49:22 -0800, Dan O wrote:

This is interesting too:

http://www.turningtools.co.uk/histor...-turning2.html


Do you watch The Woodwright's Shop on TV. I'll bet my kids (they of the
"TV on 24/7 if anyone's awake" experiment, flying in the face of
conventional child rearing wisdom) are among the very few who even know
Roy Underhill - a wonderful, genuine character.

As a child I also was brought up on woodworking and DIY. The British
version wasn't quite as good at the finished product but was very
entertaining.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PCQOCQripBs#t=1268
--
davethedave

John B. writes:

On Thu, 14 Nov 2013 09:51:43 -0500, Radey Shouman
wrote:

John B. writes:

On Tue, 12 Nov 2013 21:42:21 -0500, Radey Shouman
wrote:

John B. writes:

On Tue, 12 Nov 2013 14:06:53 -0500, Radey Shouman
wrote:

John B. writes:

On Mon, 11 Nov 2013 20:21:09 -0500, Radey Shouman
wrote:

John B. writes:

On Mon, 11 Nov 2013 10:43:49 -0500, Radey Shouman
wrote:

Frank Krygowski writes:

On Sunday, November 10, 2013 6:50:58 PM UTC-5, Radey Shouman wrote:
Sir Ridesalot writes:

I believe it was Quakers who when building wooden ships used square
pegs in round holes because that stopped the peg from twisting loose
in use. So, sometimes even a square peg in a round hole is useful.

Not just Quakers, surely. Treenails were standard practice. I have
read that the non-native black locust trees in my area were originally
introduced to provide treenail stock.

Here are some pictures and video:

http://www.boat-building.org/learn-s...ood/treenails/

Those certainly look round to me.

The head ends are left square, and the corners are driven into whatever
is being fastened. I would be amazed if Quakers or anyone else drove
full-length square pegs into round holes.

Why in the world would one want to leave a square head on a round peg.
Beside I don't think that you are envisioning just how treenails were
installed... The ends of the treenail were slotted and after driving
into place wedges were driven into the end of the treenail to lock it
in place.

Why would anyone put a flat head on a nail? So it doesn't go all the way
into the hole. The corners bite into the hole, keeping it in place
before wedges are driven into each end. After that the protruding ends
can be cut off.

I don't have to envision it, because I can watch the nice video of a guy
who apparently does it for a living:

http://www.boat-building.org/learn-s...ood/treenails/

It's really pretty entertaining.

All I can say that I've spent time examining the remains of schooners
built in the early 1900's, I spent quite a bit of time helping with
the rebuilding of a 60 ft. wooden fishing boat under the supervision
of a wooden boat builder that was born in 1890 and spent his life
building traditional Maine wooden boats, I've build a boat or two
myself, and I've never seen a treenail with a square head.

But if you've seen it in the movies then I'll bow to your superior
knowledge.

So you've installed treenails? How were they made? Did you make them?
It seems to me that the only straightforward ways of making round pins
out of wood start with squares, why wouldn't it be *easier* to leave a
square head on them?

Well historically they were made by a bloke who split a plank into
smaller pieces and then used, probably a draw knife, to make them into
a round pin. My grandfather's barn, that I mentioned had treenails for
the mortise-tenon joints that weren't perfectly round.

Right, he split them into roughly square pieces, and then rounded them.
It's extra trouble to take the square head off, in that case -- you
have to turn the bugger around on your shaving horse, an extra step.

Err... I suspect that treenails would have been made in fairly long
lengths - say four to six feet. You take your work piece and lay it
down on whatever you are using to lay stuff on and round off one half
and then turn it end for end and do the other end. then cut the
treenails off a bit longer then the work. You wouldn't make the tree
nails to frame up a barn one piece at a time.

You talk like a man with a six foot lathe, rather than one with a froe
and a drawknife. From your description you've never rounded a piece of
stock by hand at all.

Well, not recently I'll admit, but I have hand made masts and spars
since I was 10 or 11 years old when I made (albeit with a great deal
of help from my father) an iceboat, as they were called then. It also
had a sail made from a flour sack, but my mother sewed that :-)

Hand split shingles are not made as you describe, nor are hand split
chair parts.

I hate to be the one to tell you but cedar shakes, as they are
properly called, are not round. Nor can they be made in one long
length and sliced off to size as they taper so if they were 6 foot
lengths one end would be paper thin and the other about two inches
thick and every shake would be a different thickness. Very difficult
to lay them evenly :-)

I hate to tell you, but there were things called shingles before they
were ever sawn. Hand split shingles, or shakes, are tapered after being
split. They could be split into six foot lengths, cut, and then
tapered, but that would be stupid.

--

On Fri, 15 Nov 2013 11:05:26 -0500, Radey Shouman
wrote:

John B. writes:

On Thu, 14 Nov 2013 21:14:49 -0500, Radey Shouman
wrote:

David Scheidt writes:

John B. wrote:
:On Tue, 12 Nov 2013 19:36:12 +0000 (UTC), David Scheidt
wrote:

:
:Before about 1820, no treenails were round. They were square, the
:better grade hexaganal ("eight square"). The engine lathe made it
:possible to make round treenails, which are markedly inferior. (So
:much so that using round treenails increased the cost of insuring a
:ship, or made it impossible to do so.) The advantage of a square or
:hex treenail is that it will go into a hole rather smaller than the
:treenail, which greatly increases the holding force it exerts. None
:of these were expanded with wedges, which is a slip shod technique.
:

:Well, as I previously said, my grandfather's barn was built with
:mortise-tenon joints holding the post and beams together and the
:joints were pinned with treenails. and they were essentially round,
:and I doubt that barn builders in the 1700's had a lathe set up at the
:building site to make the pins.

A barn is not a boat. And the pin used in a cross bored mortise and
tenon joint isn't the same as a treenail tused to fasten planks in
place.

:And I might add, that I've certainly seen masts and spars on the USS
:Constitution (built in 1794) that were round. Long skinny round things
:they were. If a lathe was necessary to make them it must have been a
:big one.

What's a spar got to do with a treenail? Other than 'wood, on ships'?

he
http://www.boatdesign.net/forums/att...0.16.27-am.png

Taht's a picture from Essex. Maybe Massachusetts did things
differently than Maine, but I wouldn't bet on it. Clearly, square
heads.

Nice picture. Here's a link that connects to some discussion:

http://www.boatdesign.net/forums/woo...s-37071-3.html


Well here is a site that shows exactly what I've been talking about,
in some detail.
http://penobscotmarinemuseum.org/pbh...ng-wooden-ship


Interesting site. They show treenails being rounded by pounding them
through a hole in a thick steel plate (like a large dowel plate).
Although this has certainly been done, it's a modern innovation. Thick
steel plates were not available back in the days of the Constitution.

Why ever not?

The plate that they show is about 1/3rd the diameter of the treenail
in thickness. If the treenail is 1 inch in diameter than the metal
plate is about 1/3rd inch thick and certainly that is well within the
capability of early American blacksmiths to make.

It might also be noted that by 1776 the "Colonies" were producing
1/7th of the world's iron and steel.
--
Cheers,

John B.

John B. writes:

On Fri, 15 Nov 2013 11:05:26 -0500, Radey Shouman
wrote:

John B. writes:

On Thu, 14 Nov 2013 21:14:49 -0500, Radey Shouman
wrote:

David Scheidt writes:

John B. wrote:
:On Tue, 12 Nov 2013 19:36:12 +0000 (UTC), David Scheidt
wrote:

:
:Before about 1820, no treenails were round. They were square, the
:better grade hexaganal ("eight square"). The engine lathe made it
:possible to make round treenails, which are markedly inferior. (So
:much so that using round treenails increased the cost of insuring a
:ship, or made it impossible to do so.) The advantage of a square or
:hex treenail is that it will go into a hole rather smaller than the
:treenail, which greatly increases the holding force it exerts. None
:of these were expanded with wedges, which is a slip shod technique.
:

:Well, as I previously said, my grandfather's barn was built with
:mortise-tenon joints holding the post and beams together and the
:joints were pinned with treenails. and they were essentially round,
:and I doubt that barn builders in the 1700's had a lathe set up at the
:building site to make the pins.

A barn is not a boat. And the pin used in a cross bored mortise and
tenon joint isn't the same as a treenail tused to fasten planks in
place.

:And I might add, that I've certainly seen masts and spars on the USS
:Constitution (built in 1794) that were round. Long skinny round things
:they were. If a lathe was necessary to make them it must have been a
:big one.

What's a spar got to do with a treenail? Other than 'wood, on ships'?

he
http://www.boatdesign.net/forums/att...0.16.27-am.png

Taht's a picture from Essex. Maybe Massachusetts did things
differently than Maine, but I wouldn't bet on it. Clearly, square
heads.

Nice picture. Here's a link that connects to some discussion:

http://www.boatdesign.net/forums/woo...s-37071-3.html


Well here is a site that shows exactly what I've been talking about,
in some detail.
http://penobscotmarinemuseum.org/pbh...ng-wooden-ship


Interesting site. They show treenails being rounded by pounding them
through a hole in a thick steel plate (like a large dowel plate).
Although this has certainly been done, it's a modern innovation. Thick
steel plates were not available back in the days of the Constitution.

Why ever not?

The plate that they show is about 1/3rd the diameter of the treenail
in thickness. If the treenail is 1 inch in diameter than the metal
plate is about 1/3rd inch thick and certainly that is well within the
capability of early American blacksmiths to make.

It might also be noted that by 1776 the "Colonies" were producing
1/7th of the world's iron and steel.

Possible, sure. Cost effective, no way.

--