Slant top desk fall board

[albreed]

I'm with Siemsen. This is probably the thing they spent thee least time thinking about of all.
When I first started looking a furniture, the double comma shaped pins intrigued me, because I never saw them on reproductions, which usually  seemed to have been made by people who were determined to show that a square peg was used, and it should look square when it was done.
In the end , i found that if you drilled the hole with a spoon bit and drove in a riven pin, like Mike said, with a bluntly tapered end and a couple of the corners taken off, the result will be exactly like what you see in early work. I make all my pins on a bench hook with a chisel, and it takes about 10 seconds a pin.-Al

[Jeff L Headley]

Original fall board and batten from 1798 in Winchester Virginia. Notice the crack at the top of the miter with no pins. As Al commented the crack comes from the fall board shrinking and the batten binding at the case when folded down. I have many other aspects of this desk which need to be commented upon. A truly great learning experience from earlier pieces made in the same cabinet shop. A school of it's own.

[Jeff L Headley]

Better picture of original