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Corner dowels/pins in Oxford Frames

T

Tiresias

Nordic Pine
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I’m making an Oxford frame. Or trying to. Joints no problem (or at least I know the theory, ability may lag some way behind.)
Some I have seen have what look to be square faceted dowels pinning the corners. I rather like that.
Is the best way of doing these making and inserting/gluing the dowels and then paring the tops (seems to me to risk marring the frame). Or shape them beforehand and tap in very carefully?
Or should they be actually square pegs?
It’s a small frame (about 240mm by 300mm internally), and narrow, about 30mm, in oak. The pins, if I do them, would be plum wood.
The ‘picture’ is a tapestry by my partner of a pig eating an apple in our orchard. Not exactly high art, but, hey…
I did do a search, but, being self taught, I frequently don’t know the right terms for which to search.
 
Oooo picture frames, not my favorite thing to make, you need to make the oppsite sides the same length and all the miters exactly at 45deg.

Add to that drilling a hole through starting at an angle to the surface with out the drill sliping, and causing breakout at the far side.

I would just do miters and feathers/splines, just a saw cut and a thin piece of wood glued in, simple.

Pete
 
I reckon they'll be little square plugs maybe 6 or 8mm long (deep). Underneath could be a dowel or a pin, if anything at all. The frames will be plenty strong enough without any fixing in the joints, so the thing you see will just be decorative.

I make these square pegs by planing a square-sectioned piece slightly oversize and then paring a gentle taper onto each face of each of the pegs. Chiseling out the hole/ socket/ mortice is where the skill lies. It's fiddly work, and hard to get spot on.
 
Pete Maddex":1qikmcc4 said:
Oooo picture frames, not my favorite thing to make, you need to make the oppsite sides the same length and all the miters exactly at 45deg........
Pete
Click to expand...

As I understand it, Pete, an Oxford frame doesn't have mitres. All the frame members run past the corners, and the joints are simple half-laps.
 
Pete Maddex":144pwc5a said:
......Still don't like picture frames.....
Click to expand...

I couldn't agree more. I refuse to do them. They're an absolute pig to get right.
 
I seem to remember my father having some Ercol furniture in the dining room. The sideboard of which made a feature of the dowels which IIRC were round but paired to form a very low 3 or 4 sided pyramid.
 
Andyp":2l6yorfr said:
I seem to remember my father having some Ercol furniture in the dining room. The sideboard of which made a feature of the dowels which IIRC were round but paired to form a very low 3 or 4 sided pyramid.
Click to expand...

We have those on our Ercol refectory table. Bit of a nuisance really on a horizontal surface.
On the arms of the dining chairs where they could have been a feature, the rounded wedged through tenons are finished flat.
Bob
 
I was going to look through some old books and see what they said, but frankly, if you follow AndyP's link through to the website and blog entry with its references to the same books, then I don't have much to add, except to suggest that the sort of decorative dowel or stud you are after also crops up in the American factory-made arts and crafts style of Greene and Greene. The style is still popular amongst woodworkers in the USA and I predict that a search for it will bring up a range of options from careful chiselling to buying ready-made studs.
 
I seem to remember someone (possibly Norm) hammering in a hollow chisel morticer bit in to make a square hole that was to far in for his morticer. Then fitting a square peg.

Pete
 
Can't help with square pins - just a sharp chisel is what I would use. But for dead accurate mitres framing work is transformed with a mitre guillotine. I bought a smallish one off the bay from a charity shop seller, which has a sharp blade on each end a centre handle. I cut the frames close but slightly over with a mitre saw and then guillotine to dead on perfect fit. Almost idiot proof - which is what I need :oops:
 
I would drill holes the same size as the distance across the flats of the length of square section you want to use, glue and hammer pegs in ( you may want a test try). Then when dry cut off about 3mm long and use a chisel upside down, swift knock so that it produces a pyramid as mentioned above, 2 or3 more cuts and it’s almost pure William Morris. Or do I mean Arts and Crafts, anyway you get the idea. Ian
 
Thank you all.

I can see that any peg of that sort isn’t going to add strength to a half lap joint, so purely cosmetic. Which seems strange given the ethos that gave rise to the oxford frame style, but hey ho.

I like Ian’s approach, but don’t have enough confidence that I wouldn’t mess it up. So I’ll probably make looseish pre-formed pegs and glue them in. If it looks anything like a decent job I’ll post some photographs of progress.
 
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