Tool Talk
What's-It Forum => What's-It Forum => Topic started by: wrenchguy on November 01, 2012, 05:13:01 PM
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Here's a link to other forum i had it posted. Scroll up to Davids answer. http://lumberjocks.com/topics/43064
thanks
i'm working on daughters 110year old house in plymouth taxachewetts and have run across this thingy driven into the corner of 2x4. the thingy looks tobe a wedge of wood as u can see the endgrain of the wedge. this is the 3rd or 4th time i've come across these. i've seen them in 2x10's and other 2x4's, always driven into the corner. why and what purpose are these. maybe this is a sawyer question.
anyone know a good sawyer fourm?
thanks.
(http://i113.photobucket.com/albums/n210/wrenchguy49/SAM_0950.jpg)
(http://i113.photobucket.com/albums/n210/wrenchguy49/SAM_0952.jpg)
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Do they spread the timber so it fills the space it occupies?
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Kind of odd. On modern walls, covered with sheetrock, it's good practice to "line" the walls, straightening out studs so the sheetrock lies flat. That's not critical with lath-and-plaster walls, because the flatness is achieved by how well you do the plaster work (on our house, the outside of the perimeter walls are held flat, so the siding lays flat; inside studs are all over the place, but you'd never know, thanks to the lath-and-plaster).
Not sure what the heck this thing is.
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Do they spread the timber so it fills the space it occupies?
i don't think so, the crack u see is about all there is in length, to me, the wedge causes the split. it don't fix a twist or crown.
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Kind of odd. On modern walls, covered with sheetrock, it's good practice to "line" the walls, straightening out studs so the sheetrock lies flat. That's not critical with lath-and-plaster walls, because the flatness is achieved by how well you do the plaster work (on our house, the outside of the perimeter walls are held flat, so the siding lays flat; inside studs are all over the place, but you'd never know, thanks to the lath-and-plaster).
Not sure what the heck this thing is.
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yea i know about making balloon framing flat and on plane for drywall, these studs are all over the place. They run (one piece) from foundation sill to top plate second story. (bout 20') I'll post some pics how i'm setting the walls up for drywall. (saturday)
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I can just see the spirit of a long past carpenter laughing about nailing up the slats and finding a sharp broken piece, and seeing a crack in the framing, driving it in, only to puzzle us 100 plus years later!!
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I can just see the spirit of a long past carpenter laughing about nailing up the slats and finding a sharp broken piece, and seeing a crack in the framing, driving it in, only to puzzle us 100 plus years later!!
This is the 3rd or 4th time i've come across these. i've seen them in 2x10's and other 2x4's, always driven into the corner.
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I've never seen anything like this, nor have I read of anything like this. Odd bit.
I'd be very interested in knowing what this is about.
Could it be some kind of carpenter superstition? I don't see any practical application.
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I have searched all day for a answer to this mystery and this is all I could find.
Mel
Straightening bent studs
Another technique that was used at the time, with full consent of the authorities was known as "Crippling a stud". We were allowed to straighten bent studs, no more than two or three in any one wall, in the manner shown in the sketch. Note. The bend in the sketch has been exaggerated for clarity. (We were rough, but not so rough:-)
The stud walls are always assembled on the flat with any bends or bows up.
This makes it easy to the plates to them. If the bows were down some of them would rock about.
The main reason of course is that this avoids getting a one up one down effect which doubles any possible difference. (This is a fairly universal principle with joist and rafter also.
straightening a stud in a framed wall
Cyclone construction - When the wall is in place but before the noggins are fixed, any studs that stick out are straightened by the following method.
The offending stud has a saw cut a half to two thirds the depth of the stud cut into It.
One guy levers the stud inwards using a spare length of timber against the next stud.
The saw cut opens up and another guy drives a timber wedge into the saw cut. This fixes the stud in it's new position.
A couple of cleats are nailed either side of the saw cut to give back some of the strength that the saw cut has taken away.
Needless to say a few of these in a wall made it a lot less resistant to wind driven flying objects from the outside.
Ground level timber frame houses were built very similarly, mostly sitting on a concrete raft slab with a sprinkling of hold down bolts. They suffered slightly less than the high set ones.
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I have searched all day for a answer to this mystery and this is all I could find.
Mel
Straightening bent studs
Another technique that was used at the time, with full consent of the authorities was known as "Crippling a stud". We were allowed to straighten bent studs, no more than two or three in any one wall, in the manner shown in the sketch. Note. The bend in the sketch has been exaggerated for clarity. (We were rough, but not so rough:-)
The stud walls are always assembled on the flat with any bends or bows up.
This makes it easy to the plates to them. If the bows were down some of them would rock about.
The main reason of course is that this avoids getting a one up one down effect which doubles any possible difference. (This is a fairly universal principle with joist and rafter also.
straightening a stud in a framed wall
Cyclone construction - When the wall is in place but before the noggins are fixed, any studs that stick out are straightened by the following method.
The offending stud has a saw cut a half to two thirds the depth of the stud cut into It.
One guy levers the stud inwards using a spare length of timber against the next stud.
The saw cut opens up and another guy drives a timber wedge into the saw cut. This fixes the stud in it's new position.
A couple of cleats are nailed either side of the saw cut to give back some of the strength that the saw cut has taken away.
Needless to say a few of these in a wall made it a lot less resistant to wind driven flying objects from the outside.
Ground level timber frame houses were built very similarly, mostly sitting on a concrete raft slab with a sprinkling of hold down bolts. They suffered slightly less than the high set ones.
i've made stress relief cuts in alot of studs to straighten and follow up with a sister fastened to it to keep it straight. this ain't nothing like that. whats odd with these, it goes in at like 45 degrees right on the very very edge of the corner, not 90 degrees to the flats. this has got me looking high and low 4 more before i drywall tomorrow.
thanks.
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I've never seen anything like this, nor have I read of anything like this. Odd bit.
I'd be very interested in knowing what this is about.
Could it be some kind of carpenter superstition? I don't see any practical application.
i hope ur not right about these superstition thoughts, i want a plausible answer, but agree no practical application.
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Very interesting, It seems they would have had to make a slot by driving a chisel in the stud first then inserting the wedge. I wonder if it was used to tie off a straight line to.....but why not just use a nail ?
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the last pic shows strapping shimmed 5/8" off stud to make on plane.
thanks
(http://i113.photobucket.com/albums/n210/wrenchguy49/SAM_0978.jpg)
(http://i113.photobucket.com/albums/n210/wrenchguy49/SAM_0972.jpg)
(http://i113.photobucket.com/albums/n210/wrenchguy49/SAM_0971.jpg)
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Straightening a bent stud? That seems to be an awful lot of work when a shim would serve as well.
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Straightening a bent stud? That seems to be an awful lot of work when a shim would serve as well.
i agree when ur fixing 1 or 2 studs, but all the corners were out plumb at least 3/4" in 8', none of the studs were on plane with anything, nothing carried centers, so i plumbed corners chalked some lines and strapped on plane. putting sheet up vertical so no butts to tape. no insulation in the walls so we insulated and put new mechanic'ls in. we call this 10 year project, "fun with dad". been here off and on 7 year now. thanks
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if I were to guess, I would say that it is left over from construction - a small piece of wood driven into a corner stud would be handy for a snap line, for example, and once you are done, just snap of hte protuding piece - that way you don't waste a nail.
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i agree when ur fixing 1 or 2 studs, but all the corners were out plumb at least 3/4" in 8', none of the studs were on plane with anything, nothing carried centers, so i plumbed corners chalked some lines and strapped on plane. putting sheet up vertical so no butts to tape. no insulation in the walls so we insulated and put new mechanic'ls in. we call this 10 year project, "fun with dad". been here off and on 7 year now. thanks
I didn't mean the work that you did, but easier and more practical than making a split in the 2X and pounding in a wedge -- the original whatsit post.
Sorry to have been unclear.
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"I didn't mean the work that you did, but easier and more practical than making a split in the 2X and pounding in a wedge -- the original whatsit post.
Sorry to have been unclear."
no problem, i did think u posted about the work i was doing and it is alot of work. sorry tobe so defensive. i type with 1 finger and can hardly spell or talk coherent most time.
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The first house I owned was built in 1901 and was balloon framed. There was a fair amount of stuff in both the walls and plaster. Bobby pins and hair in the plaster and so much stuff I can’t remember in the stud bays. Newspapers stapled to the sheeting. We found an interesting trade magazine called “the washroom” we framed a few advertisements from it and put them in our laundry room.
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>Bobby pins and hair in the plaster
Animal hair was more valuable for stuffing furniture and such, human hair (barber shop clippings) had a market tho, and some of it went into plaster as an alternative to horsehair....
Nothing went to waste back then, there was a use for anything and everything, because there was nothing at all that was so cheap you could just throw it away...
I was looking through patent files earlier, and there was a patent for a device for repairing incandescent light bulbs....Remember when a light bulb was worth enough to even consider *repairing* it?
My friends 100+ year old house yielded some clay marbles, and a 3rd grade reading book...
Oddly, they came from the kitchen wall, we surmise that the kitchen was once a bedroom or playroom or such...
(By far the funniest phone call I ever got was from him trying to figure out why his porch light wouldn't work. The fellow is an electrical engineer, and he was totally baffled. The house had single conductor knob and tube wires...going off in opposite directions....)
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Okay, I know this thought is really out there, but bear with me for a minute:
I think the wood driven into the corner studs is a way to mark off how deep the base coat plaster should be.
In those days, plaster was the one thing that could be used to true up a room or wall. Considering how much green, native lumber was used in those days shows how out of square a wall or room could be. Supporting this theory is that the OP may have had to shim out the wall with new 1 x stock to make them true.
Sadly, I've seen a number of people destroy perfect plaster walls that were as solid and as flat as you could ever imagine, only because it made them feel like they were "doing something with these old walls" while they "were fixin' this old place up". Once they had painstakingly destroyed the old plaster, they found walls that were so wavy that you could surf down them, and not a one of them true or square, especially for new drywall or trim. And then they cuss the old house because it was so out of square, and fill 1" gaps between the new trim and new drywall with a tube and a half of caulk.
I don't know if anyone else has worked much with new plaster for restoration work, but I've found it can be a little hard to figure out where to bring your scratch coat, especially if you are coating a wall of lath without any other reference point. It certainly takes a while to get a feel for the depth when applying your base coat.
It is my estimation that the wood driven into the corners, and not found anywhere else is to allow the plaster men to gauge two walls at the same time. Otherwise, one wall might be 3/4" thick. another might be 1/2" thick, and yet another, be 3/8" thick, all in the same room.
These wood shims might have also allowed the plaster crews to start a house with the base coat before the trim carpenters got to the job. It was standard procedure then to hang the trim first, and then start the plaster after the trim was finished.
Those wood shims might have been a reference point for lath crews, plaster crews, or the trim men, but my guess is that they were for the plaster guys for depth and keeping a wall true and square.
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Clovis I think you have it.
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no way, the shim didn't show up till i removed the wood lath. the lath runs out of the inside corner pictured then to the right. Einstein the photo and u see where the lath nail hole is left of the shim. the shim is practically flush with both planes, it looks proud but that is the texture of the end grain creating the effect. there is no good plaster left in this house.
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Okay, it was just a guess.
FWIW, I wasn't dogging on you personally about removing plaster. For instance, I know a guy that bought a two story Queen Anne, and was just about to gut the entire upstairs, with a cost of $5,500 for new drywall, because there were 3 bad spots of plaster, less than 6 inches square each. I offered to help fix the plaster, with a materials cost of $18, and saved weeks waiting for a drywall crew. But in his mind, the only thing to do was gut wall after wall of solid plaster, just to make himself feel like he was really doing something.
Sometimes, those walls are impossible to save, especially if the house has shifted badly and broken all the keys in a wall, for example...and sometimes there is no way around removing them.
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Okay, it was just a guess.
FWIW, I wasn't dogging on you personally about removing plaster. For instance, I know a guy that bought a two story Queen Anne, and was just about to gut the entire upstairs, with a cost of $5,500 for new drywall, because there were 3 bad spots of plaster, less than 6 inches square each. I offered to help fix the plaster, with a materials cost of $18, and saved weeks waiting for a drywall crew. But in his mind, the only thing to do was gut wall after wall of solid plaster, just to make himself feel like he was really doing something.
Sometimes, those walls are impossible to save, especially if the house has shifted badly and broken all the keys in a wall, for example...and sometimes there is no way around removing them.
i didn't think u were dogging me. i know u were coming from way out there like u said.
this place was built with undersize floor/ceiling joist and the wood beams in the basement aren't that great either. plaster is badly cracked and powderlike all over the place. the inside ain't been taken care for 50 year except paint being slopped allover the place. at least we ain't got termites.
thanks
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Are they usually the same distance off the floor? I noticed that one was broken off and one was sawed off. Could the carpenter have inserted a piece of wood to hang their hat, coat, or something else on during the construction? Or perhaps they pinned plans or drawings to the piece of wood?
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Are they usually the same distance off the floor? I noticed that one was broken off and one was sawed off. Could the carpenter have inserted a piece of wood to hang their hat, coat, or something else on during the construction? Or perhaps they pinned plans or drawings to the piece of wood?
no, all over the place where i seen them.
if ur interested here are a couple other sites i have this posted, some good stuff.
http://www.oldhouseweb.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=36797
http://www.owwm.org/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=123455
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LINK TO ANSWER I THINK . I ASKED FOR MORE INFO.
Scroll up to Davids answer. http://lumberjocks.com/topics/43064
thanks
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David's answer looks like the real thing. That would let moisture escape, not just from the wicking properties of the wedge, but from the split opened by the wedge.
It's odd to me, though, that so much green lumber would be used. I'm used to the practice of felling trees when the sap is down towards the end of winter. I still remember my great-uncle complaining about the lumber available in the late '50s. He grimaced at what was available to him, saying the wood was so green you could still hear the birds tweeting. He learned the trade from his father, who was a master carpenter at the turn of the 19th Century.
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David's answer looks like the real thing. That would let moisture escape, not just from the wicking properties of the wedge, but from the split opened by the wedge.
It's odd to me, though, that so much green lumber would be used. I'm used to the practice of felling trees when the sap is down towards the end of winter. I still remember my great-uncle complaining about the lumber available in the late '50s. He grimaced at what was available to him, saying the wood was so green you could still hear the birds tweeting. He learned the trade from his father, who was a master carpenter at the turn of the 19th Century.
from 1890 to 1915, plymouth cordage company had a huge increase in building at the plant and the cordage built over 300 homes during this time. this maybe the reason why green lumber was used. they started a carpenter shop with school in 1885 to keep the work in house and build as fast as they could for new workers. after 1910 they started erecting sears homes. my daughters house was precut at the carpenter shop. look at this rafter tails, they show and the scroll cut was done on band saw at shop. the rafters were 2x10 eastern white pine.
(http://i113.photobucket.com/albums/n210/wrenchguy49/DSC00795.jpg)
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this is what i got from david today.
Wrenchguy
This information came from several sources, all older men who worked in the late 1800’s & early 1900’s in the timber/balloon building era. Two from the Fall River/New Bedford MA area and one from Maine. They each had their own name for them, “SHAKES PIN”, SHAKES WEDGE, SHAKES STOP & Wedge Wicks”, They all said that this was a learned technic, passed on from master to apprentice. It was explained to me that these pins help stop faming from drying to fast. They were use more in the hot summer months when framing was exposed to the sun for weeks or months at a time. Remember that nearly all framing and sheeting lumber at the time was “green” usually delivered to the job site the some day it was cut from the log. In balloon construction, a 2×4 that is nailed to the bottom plate at the foundation is also nailed to the top plate at the roof line. Sometimes these 2X4’s can be over 20 feet long or longer, with better than 60% moisture, standing on end, in the sun to dry and already fasten to other wet lumber. Like you I have not found any written verification for this, just hearing this from the old-timers that worked in this era. Hope this is helpful.
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So what the answer, how about copying and pasting it here. I have been following this thread with great interest
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What a bunch of exciting information! Thanks!!!
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So what the answer, how about copying and pasting it here. I have been following this thread with great interest
They have a few names, it depends what part of the country your in and what country the craftsmen came from.
It is a wedge of wood drive in to a “green timber” to even out the drying. The end grain of the wedge acts as a wick (wick-wedge) to allow the pith to dry about the same rate as the faces of the board. They also help to stop a check from running the length of a board. Hope this is helpful
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So what the answer, how about copying and pasting it here. I have been following this thread with great interest
They have a few names, it depends what part of the country your in and what country the craftsmen came from.
It is a wedge of wood drive in to a “green timber” to even out the drying. The end grain of the wedge acts as a wick (wick-wedge) to allow the pith to dry about the same rate as the faces of the board. They also help to stop a check from running the length of a board. Hope this is helpful
Thanks
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Heres what von posted today on lumberjocks. thanks.
yep, wedge wicks, as they are known to folks in my area. not at all common with today’s pre-dried lumber. I’ve seen them myself in many many many centennial aged buildings and construction. they were usually put in at 45’s on the corner to keep the hole they made (or used) from splitting the timber any farther. most wedges were sourced from the same board they were put into. probably from scrap cutoffs or such