MYSTERY OBJECTS

[Tizer]

What's this then and what is it used for?

[PanBiker]

Is it some kind of rigging tackle from a sailing boat? It looks like some kind of sliding clamp.

Or could it be used in rope making?

[Big Kev]

Looks to be a blade in it. A circular plane for dowels?

[Stanley]

I'm with Kev. The first thing that came to mind was putting a round section on a shank for a stick so that a handle can be mounted.

[Tizer]

Kev's got the right idea about making dowels, but `dowel' isn't the word I'm looking for. Clue - think about shipbuilding.

[plaques]

The old wood sailing ships were held together with Dowels, Pegs or Tree nails. Take your pick. I always say pegs.

[Tizer]

Spot on, Plaques. I photographed the tool in Padstow Museum, Cornwall, an old fishing port, and it was amongst all the stuff associated with fishing boats. It was labelled as a `Trenail Mute - a tool for making trenails' and I had to look up the word trenail when I got back home. Treenails (which seems the most obvious version of the word) are known under several other names such as trenails, trennels, trunnels etc and are used to `nail' the timber planks to the ship's frame. I could find plenty about treenails but nothing about a tool of the type in my photo - every time I saw old methods of making treenails it involved a square section wood billet having its edges planed down to give an 8-corner section, then again to 16-corner, or using a spokeshave or similar to get round section. The tool in my photo looks like it has a blade that would allow you to rotate it as a plane around a billet using the two handles. The bolts in the sides are presumably to set the appropriate diameter. So my guess would be that a lad was trimming the billets with something like a spokeshave and then the master treenailmaker would do the final job with this tool. Why not make them just with the spokeshave? Well, you would need treenails to be a precise diameter to fit the holes in the planks and the tool would achieve that relatively easily.

That's my theory - can anyone confirm it or offer an alternative? (Doc, where are you?) Treenails were used not only in shipbuilding but for other structures such as houses and bridges. But I still don't know why the museum label called it a `trenail mute'. Where does the `mute' come into it? What has mute got to do with tools?

[plaques]

In Galley construction a copper or bronze spike was often driven down the length of the 'trenail' along its grain. This would spread the trenail to give a tighter fit.

[Stanley]

If anyone watched the 'slow TV' programme about the chair-maker he was using a modern version that fits in a power drill to round and size the ends of the round timbers that make up the back. I've never seen them before. He had a different one for each size but they were the same principle.

[Tizer]

On a boatmakers' forum I saw they used a special lathe for making trenails but there were no pictures. I mentioned using a spokeshave for rounding wood billets but descriptions of this type of tool seem to use another term, and it sounded like they used it in push mode instead of pull mode. I read that some boat builders in the past knocked wedges into the end of the fitted trenails to spread them, but others say that this shouldn't be needed, the trenails should be close fitting enough to hold without the wedges. Another difference of opinion was on whether the trenail should be hard oak or soft willow.

[Stanley]

When I have made and repaired oak furniture using pegs as nails I followed the advice of an old mate of mine. I used the same wood as the carcase I was dealing with and made the wooden nails using a plate I made out of spring steel 1/2" thick with different sized holes drilled in it. The top face was ground so that the holes had a sharp edge. Then you split a piece of wood about the right size and drove it through the appropriate hole. This tended to compress the nail and once made it was immediately driven into the hole. They were always exactly the right size and perfectly tight. The cutting action always followed the grain and some nails came out slightly curved. If anything this was an advantage and made the nail even tighter in the hole.

Try this oldie......

[Gloria]

Wooden dowels?????

[Tizer]

Austerity peanuts?

[Cathy]

I was going to say 'there not nuts then' but Tize has jumped in before me. All good

[Tizer]

I think Stanley's had them so long they've shrivelled up!

[Stanley]

Witty replies but Gloria is closest, look carefully at them, they are very specific.....

[LizG]

Small wooden widgets?

[chinatyke]

Obviously square pegs to fit round holes.

[PanBiker]

Spacers for tiling

[plaques]

Mending your clogs with. Those were the days.

[Stanley]

P has got it. They are the small square pegs made for driving into the old nail holes each time you re-ironed your clogs. I still have the nails as well and one set of Colne irons.....



Tell me what this is and put up a proper mystery....

[Gloria]

A Gormley on Crosby beach covered in barnacles.
Will see if I can find a mystery object, but don't hold your breath.

[Tizer]

It's an illegal immigrant who's just waded ashore from that ship in the background.
While Gloria thinks up a mystery object, here's one to keep you going. What's this?

[Stanley]

A pill box for two brave LDV volunteers!

[Tizer]

You're getting close with pillbox but there's more to it than that. A typical `pillbox' is usually a simple concrete structure with holes in it. I want to know why this is different and how it was used. Oh, and by the way, it would have had at least four men in this one, apparently! (Yes, I find that difficult to believe to, but I suppose people were smaller in the 1940s.)