Thread: Hammering joinery before assembly?

I suspect your compression/expansion theory is right. It also looks like he's being careful to only strike the middle of the join, but not the edges.

Here is another reason for hammering wood from another master craftsman

Originally Posted by Treecycle

Here is another reason for hammering wood from another master craftsman

That's very clever! Thanks for posting it.

Lance

Lance,

Have a look at "DYI Japanese Joinery" on Youtube. (I don't know how to quote an address)
He demonstrate what he calls kirogoshi: hammering the joint before wetting it.

Basically what happens is same as the water pond box, the glue wets the would and swells back to size creating a perfect glue joint. Similar when you leave a divot in timber, wet it or use a damp cloth and iron the cloth on the divot, it steams it out, no more divot

Further to this technique, I was assembling some joinery yesterday, and this was on my mind and got to wondering, in a tight fitting hammered joint, does the subsequent expansion of the timber have the potential to split a joint, or will the timber only expand to fill the housing? Or to put it another way, how much force can expanding wood fibres excerpt?

Perhaps it's experiment time!

Lance