Making Arts & Crafts Style Pinned Joinery

Olaf. I cut about a 12” piece of blackwood 3/8” square. I used a bandsaw to cut it square.

I then held the wood at a 45 deg angle and just cut the corner edge off each of the four sides. I then held the tip piece and cut off about 1/4” piece. That was all I used in the Thorsen Hall table that I made. The project is here and it has the link to the blogs.

I just contuinued until I got the number of pieces that I needed.

-- Karson Southern Delaware karson_morrison@bigfoot.com

I agree with Karson.

Another approach is to shape the chamfers on the disc sander,either using a guide or just hold them at an angle by eye as I do,at about 30 degrees. I typically cut mine on the bandsaw a little over sized and reduce them with my 12” portable Makita planer.Try to use straight grain wood to reduce tearout.I sneak up on the final size with scraps before sending the good stock through for the last pass.To keep glue cleanup around the pins to a minimum just use a Q-Tip to apply a little glue to the lower section of the mortise walls and bottom.Cut the pins short and set them to depth with a soft Pine block so you dont mar the point.

-- " Stubborn tenacity substitutes for natural ability" ANDY

I was just looking at Fine Woodworking’s site last night and watched this little video about square pegs. His are just decorative, but he has some nice techniques. He drills and a hole with a router, squares it with a chisel and then pounds in a square blank. He then uses a credit card as a shim/spacer to hold a saw proud to cut it off and then a chisel to form the chamfer. You have to have a subscription to watch.

Video here.

Steve

-- Stevethepeeve -- I'm no rocket surgeon