Mother's Rustic Pergola
(Page 12 of 13)
February/March 1998
By the Mother Earth News staff
To peg logs, I make simple friction joints, inserting a bone-dry dowel into holes drilled all the way through the joint. As it dries, the green building stock will grip the dowel tight. If in doubt, I insert nails into holes drilled through the dowel at both sides of the joint, and pin it with small nails.
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You can use a woodworker's doweling jig to drill plumb holes in each piece to make hidden joints. Easier is to first tie or tack the joint in place (if needed) and then drill a single pegging hole through both pieces at the same time and hammer in your dowel.
Drilling holes that are a 32nd or 64th smaller is conventional, but is likely to split green rustic building poles. I use a drill bit the self same size as the dowel. A dose of DAP/linseed/terpentine preservative will soak into the dry birch of the dowel to keep it healthy, and the linseed oil that it absorbs will force it to expand just enough to cinch the joint tight forever.
Lags are industrial-strength fasteners that come in machine-bolt sizes and in lengths up to 6" or more. A single lag screw offers more holding power than half a box of deck screws.
But using lags in rustic construction demands log-building tools that you may not be able to justify for a single small project. Lags are thick enough that pilot holes must be drilled all the way through or you'll never get them in; if you did just bull-in a lag, you'd risk splitting any rustic timber smaller than a full whole log.
Also, you usually have to drill access holes clear through a prime log to reach the joint on the other side and to reach a lagscrew's hexheads for installation and tightening. So, when buying lags, be sure you have the necessary drilling tools.
I use lags to fasten furniture or structural parts such as stairs that will have to withstand constant stress. A lag will afford near mortise and tenon strength in simple slot and milled butt joints in large logs. Neither will tend to roll.
A slot joint is described in a separate section.
In a milled butt joint, I remove bark from the joint area on the main (prime) log and mill a dish in the end wood to be fastened to it to fit the curve of the prime timber. This can be done with a chisel, but a rotary milling head on a high speed angle grinder is easier.
To fasten either type joint with a lag screw, first drill a pilot hole into the midpoint of the joiner and another through middle of joint and a the way through the prime log. Then, the hole enlarged with a 1" or larger bit from the outer edge of the prime log through to 2 or 3 inches from the other side. Using a ratchet handle and extensions, I crank the lag through the pilot ho',(. on the outside of the prime log and out through the joint in the other side of the prime log and into the pilot hole in the joiner. Lags are tightened snug, but not fully tight till the structure i5 completed; then all screw fasteners are tightened up as a final step.
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