A very long time gone, before nails came into common use most homes and barns were made of eight x eight in. timbers held along with wooden pins. This looks like a very good sort of construction, and anyone that has to take down one of those old structures knows a chainsaw is in order. Employing a chainsaw is truly over the top and considerably reduces the value of the timbers.

The colonists were a smart lot when it came to making anything if it is a home or a barn. The majority of the builders in those days was underemployed shipwrights, and took their ship making talents with them whenever they were building anything more. One of those skills was using wooden pins to join timbers together.

The utilizing of wooden pins in joinery goes back to traditional times, and has stayed in use to the present time. The cause of this is as this is among the strongest techniques of joining 2 timbers together either straight or at right angles. This is accomplished employing a mortise and tenon kind of construction. This is by cutting one beam so it has one piece of wood sticking out of the middle of the beam. The other beam has a congruent nick cut out of the center beam. 2 small holes are bored across the mortise about an in. in diameter. The beam having the matching tenon is also bored, but this dull is a touch out of line with the holes in the mortise.

The framework was generally made out of chestnut beams frequently 8 inches square, the mortise and tenon are 8 inches deep. The pin is truly the vital piece of this mixture. It was usually made out of a green piece of elm that bends quite simply when it is green. One end of this pin is beveled so it will slip into the holes that were bored earlier. The reason behind the slight offset holes is usually because this caused the pin to be a touch bent in the procedure of being driven home. The outside piece of the pin is cut off flush with the exterior of the beam. Generally the piece of pin on the inside the structure was left as it was. This is a very robust sort of construction, and it's impossible to take apart without punctiliously considering the job.

The old time builders sure knew what they were doing ; when they put something together it stayed. From an alternative perspective they also knew ways to take something apart they'd built. All that it takes is a little bit of thought and imagination. The very first thing they did after revealing the joints was to take a tiny auger and bore a hole into the centre of the pin just deep enough to get to the tenon. This they left alone for the present ; removing this part of the pin they could do at their leisure. The two outside ends of the pin were another thing though. This had to be removed with as little damage as practical. This was done with a little chisel, curved if feasible or available. Chisel out the residue of the pin and take away the mortise from the tenon. The portion in the tenon can then be knocked out simply.