How bout just using square (or hexagonal) dowels. That the was I've always
done it with timber framing (not as pretty as a perfectly fit plug though).
I've never tried it for furniture work, but it *should* work.... Here's the
formulae I use to calculate the right size:

Take the diameter of the hole (in your case 10mm, right?), and draw a square
with sides that size (10mm). Now measure the diagonal from corner to corner
(or if you're fancy, use basic geometry to determine the length of the
hypotenuse (a squared plus b squared = c squared). Now find the difference
between the length of the side and the hypotenuse, divide by two, subtract
it from the length of the side, and that's how long the sides of a square
peg should be.
English version: you want a square peg that's a little smaller than the hole
(across the face of the peg), but a bit bigger than the hole across the
diagonal of the peg.

You've got me wondering now. I'm going to have to go test it in some small
holes and see how it works....

-JD

-----Original Message-----
From: oldtools-bounces@r...
[mailto:oldtools-bounces@r...] On Behalf Of Peter Ashby
Sent: Thursday, May 04, 2006 5:11 PM
To: oldtools@r...
Subject: Re: [OldTools] Elm tree Problem

>On Wednesday 03 May 2006 11:02, Yarrow, Gary wrote:
>>  Do you have a lot of squirrels or chipmunks around?  If they are low
>>  on food, they like the new, fresh growth stuff.
>
>and they don't need to be real low on food.  We have a fine crop of
>squirrels every year and I see them, each spring, tasting new shoots and
>leafs.  Doesn't seem to hurt the trees, from what I've seen. 
>
>>  Fix??  Got a cat?
>>
>
>Young cat, might be a temp fix.  We've got fat squirrels and fat cats.
>
>Marv    in Lex, KY  enjoying spring and 2 new cats

Over here in the UK we have way too many of your squirrels and not 
enough of our own, but anyway. When we lived in suburban London we 
had squirrels in the garden and the neighbour had a cat. The 
squirrels were wont to sit on the fence between our places and peer 
into our kitchen (the kids liked feeding them nuts). One morning the 
squirrel had given up its 'look I'm cute, feed me' act on the fence 
and was wandering off along the top of said fence. Now next door's 
cat leaps onto the fence and decides that the classic 'cat chases 
rodent' thing is happening and indeed it does, until the squirrel 
decides otherwise, does a 180 handbrake turn, up goes the tail, it 
bristles, rest of squirrel bristles. Cat screeches to a halt, thinks 
'this isn't going to script', eyes belligerent rodent and decides 
that ones that fight back are no fun. So in true cat style it 
nonchalantly hops off the fence projecting 'I wasn't chasing anybody' 
and the squirrel progresses along the fence before transferring to 
the oak that swathed the shed.

Moral: don't rely on cats to remove squirrels, harass maybe at most.

Peter
Who having drilled 24 holes through mortises and 24 slightly offset 
holes in tenons* goes out to get more 10mm# dowel for pegs as I 
calculate I don't have enough. I can get 9mm, I can get 12mm but 10mm 
cannot be found, but I have already drilled the holes... Maybe the 
universe is trying to tell me it is time to get a lathe and learn to 
use it.

*Just to drag things slightly on topic.
#I grew up in New Zealand and think in metric, also so does the EU.
-- 
Dundee, Scotland.

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