Hey everybody, it’s that time of year again – it’s the Anarchist’s Gift Guide. We’ve been doing this for more than a decade now, people seem to like it, so I guess we’ll keep it up. Why? Unlike some other gift guides, ours isn’t sponsored. (In fact, if somebody asked us to write about their tool for the gift guide, our standard retort would be: “Why don’t you poop up your own butt?”) This is stuff we use and love. We have 11 offerings this year, and will publish one a day until we’re done. – Chris & Fitz
Kakuri Wooden Nails
For the first 20 years of my chairmaking, I pinned my combs and backrests using the bamboo skewers I also used for shish kebab. At one point a customer called me out on using bamboo instead of a native hardwood, so I started looking for a solution I could use on a mass scale during classes.
Enter the Kakuri wooden nails. These tapered pegs come in beech and birch and have a matching drill bit for installing them. The fit between the two tapers is so tight that you don’t really need glue – the joint locks up like using a Morse taper.
The nails come in eight sizes, from extra small (35mm long) to large (88mm long).
They are useful for more than just pegging tenons. Many people use them as a substitute for a steel nail in casework construction. We also use them to reinforce repairs and add extra shear strength to shelving joints.
And if you fall hard for the Kakuris (like I did) they also sell a nice flush-cut saw with extra fine teeth that is ideal for cutting the pegs flush after installing them. – CS
It’s always a pleasure reading the blog. Thank y’all for y’all’s wisdom and interests!
what size do you recomend for stick chair combs ?
I use the extra small.
I have used them with small cracks. Drill the taper in the end of the crack and whack in a wooden nail. The crack won’t propagate any further. Not an ideal situation but it works.
Do you have a better alternative than the provided bit?
Why would a customer call you out on something so common like bamboo chopsticks? Anyone ordering Chinese takeout or sushi gets them anyway so a lot of houses have stockpiles of extra chopsticks. Bamboo is super invasive so why can’t we cut them down and process them for things like chopsticks, or in this case, chair pegs?
I would. Seems like a cop out . To hand make a chair and then not have made proper pegs, dear dear.
But buying them at all is the same thing then. And if not buying them, then you need to buy soething to make the pegs. either a dowelmaker, dowelplate, or a piece of steel and drill bits to make the dowel plate, or a knife to carve them. At what point does the purity test stop?
“On the fifth day of Gift Guide, my true love gave to me…..” nothing? No golden rings or birds or nothing?
Nihonsan Tools also carries the wooden nails and the drill bits: https://www.nihonsantools.com/tools/p/wooden-nails