> Date: Thu, 23 Jul 1998 10:35:58 -0400
> From: Paul Pedersen 
> Subject: Treenails and jowls
>
> I'm currently designing a timber-framed shed for the side of
> the house using Cecil A. Hewett's "English Historic Carpentry"
> (ISBN 0-941936-41-4) as a reference.
>
> Off-hand I'd say I'll be needing at least a couple hundred
> treenails.  Is there some trick to producing these in a timely
> fashion, or does one have to hack them out one at a time using
> a hatchet ?  Hewing each one by hand could easily amount to
> the most time-consuming operation of the whole construction.
I seem to recall Roy Underhill using a dowel plate for producing
pins on one of his shows.  He split pieces of approximate size
with a froe, and then drove them through a drilled hole in a
steel plate.  I think there were several sizes of holes so that
he could stage larger pieces to the proper size.
Hope this helps.

Steve Shapland