wooden pegs

[Don Shirey]

can anyone tell me an efficient way to make wooden pegs? Specifically I am looking for a way to make a large number (100) of 1/4 " pegs with a 3/8 " square top. I will be making these pegs out of ebony. I do not have a access to a lathe. Thanks for your help.

[Michael Schwartz]

Well the neanderthal method for making a round peg would be to start with a square blank, and split it into an octagonal shape and then hammer it through a dowel plate, which is just a piece of steel with a hole in it. For the top you could then drill a hole in a square block and glue the peg in. This works really well in smaller diameters, just not sure how it would work for a larger size.

This can also be done on the table-saw and there are a number of jig setups that can be used. It would be pretty easy to make it from one solid piece with this method.

[Richard Magbanua]

How about using a drill press? Maybe you could come up with a hole that tapers to 1/4" and cuts it to size as you lower the drill press.

[Jim Koepke]

can anyone tell me an efficient way to make wooden pegs? Specifically I am looking for a way to make a large number (100) of 1/4 " pegs with a 3/8 " square top. I will be making these pegs out of ebony. I do not have a access to a lathe. Thanks for your help.

If you have a drill press, a plug cutter may be a good way to go. This could make the 1/4" diameter and then using a band saw, table saw or hand saw if need be to cut them apart and cut the just below the square top to free the plug.

The draw back to this is most plug cutters can only cut about an inch deep.

Another way may be to build your own dowel cutter. This would make it possible to make a longer peg. It is basically like a small pencil sharpener that cuts straight instead of a point.

jim

[glenn bradley]

Having done this only 16 times I switched to dowels with decorative square plugs. I whittled the first 16 and smoothed the shafts by inserting the nearly round portion in the drill press and holding a file to the shaft (square head at the unchucked tip). Not worth the effort as it gave me no personal satisfaction to know that they were "there" even though they did not show.

[David Keller NC]

Don - Have you got a Fine Woodworking on-line subscription? I seem to remember there was an article perhaps 6 months back in the magazine about efficiently making many ebony pegs to use in Arts and Crafts type furniture. The method was power-tool based, but honestly, if I had 100 of them to do, I'd probably do it with "tailed" tools, particularly because the originals were probably made that way.

If you want to do it with hand tools, my suggestion would be to cross-cut the ebony into strips the length of the pegs you wish to make, then use a jig to hold the strips end-to-end and a miter plane or low angle block plane to bevel each side of the ends. Then one would carefully cross-cut the strips, rotate them and put them back in the jig, and plane chamfers on the remaining 2 sides.

For one or two, I wouldn't bother making a jig. But for 100, I think it'd be well worth it.

[glenn bradley]

Here's the FWW article I'll bet: http://www.taunton.com/finewoodworking/FWNPDF/011185072.pdf

[Don Shirey]

Thanks for all the advice, after several experiments, I ended up making a dowel plate from a scrap of tool steel, ripping 3/8 " strips, cutting them into 1.5 in pegs, hand paring 1 inch of each peg crudely to get it started in the dowell plate, then pounded them into the dowell plate, punched them out, and with a pocket knife cleaned up the the bottem on the cap. Time consuming, and tedious. I have an idea for a rotating jig that I will make for the next batch, it will use power tools, and will hopefully result in less finger cuts. Thanks again for the suggestions.

[David Keller NC]

Don - If you don't have a FWW subscription that will allow you access to the article glenn linked to, I can guarantee it'll be worth the $14.95 web subscription it takes to get access - I think you'll save that money in the first 15 minutes of producing several hundred of these guys.

[Jim Eller]

Don - If you don't have a FWW subscription that will allow you access to the article glenn linked to, I can guarantee it'll be worth the $14.95 web subscription it takes to get access - I think you'll save that money in the first 15 minutes of producing several hundred of these guys.

David,

How do I get that deal?? I've been paying $34.95 for the past couple of years.

I thought it was a good deal for what I get, but, I like the $14.95 much better.

Jim

[David Keller NC]

Jim - I might have that wrong. I get charged $14.95 a year, but I'm also a subscriber (print magazine). It might well be that FWW is charging different rates based on the new-age business model of "make sure you get at least X out of every customer, no matter the level of service".

That, by the way, is why it's nearly impossible to find a traditional cell-phone service (where you own the phone and get monthly minutes) that's less than about $30 a month, including taxes. I actually read an article about this is Business magazine a few years ago when the cell phone companies changed from getting their revenue largely on a metered-minute basis to a "minimum from every subscriber" basis where they give most customers unlimited off-peak cell phone time.