I was given some old floorboards a few months back and am no splitting some for kindling. I was surprised to discover that in the absence of T&G to lock them together they were joined with wooden dowels every 6 inches. What a time consuming job that must have been in the days pre power tools!
Any ideas how old these might be?
Mike
I had a house that was four hundred years old, the floorboards were oak 2" thick. I suppose dowels would be the alternative to that. Some of the door had rebated planks.
I saw some pictures of an iron age boat (from a bog). The planks were assembled with mortices and slips of wood in the edges. Sewn together.
Never seen that on Victorian or Georgian houses. Still have some of the original elm planks in current 1780's house, about 10 x 1, supported by
4x4 oak joists.
Can't think why anyone would do that. Plenty of older houses have plain planks for floorboards, without any need to tie the edges together. They need to be able to expand and contract across the grain as humidity changes - are the dowels a sliding fit?
No they are a tight fit, all have of course been broken or cut when the boards were removed.
Mike
Wood boring machines can be traced back to the late 18th century.
Power tools, in the form of trip hammers, date back to the 14th century; much longer if you include milling grain. You did need to take the work to the tool though; water wheels are not terribly portable.
I can find a reference in one of my building construction books to timber partitions being dowelled in the 17th century, but nothing about their use in contemporary floor construction. An architectural design book from the late 19th century gives dowelling as a method of strengthening floors in factories to take heavy loads.
Can you tell what wood they are made from? Oak would be likely in the
17th century and possible for a 19th century factory floor, but another wood would make the later date more probable.Colin Bignell
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