Swingman wrote:
"dpb" wrote in message

Given the tensile strength of steel, it would take a very large dowel
to exceed it from a purely mechanical viewpoint. The screw will
almost invariably pull from the wood by the wood failing long before
the screw itself will fail.

Food for thought:

Old timey, wooden shutter frames around here were often made with M&T
joints (one side, top and bottom, purposely unglued to facilitate
replacing the shutters) and with a screw countersunk into the edge of
the shutter frame and driven directly into the end grain of the tenons.

The screw hole was plugged to keep out the elements, but could be
drilled out later if/when it eventually came time to replace the shutter
slats.

It made for a helluva strong joint on big window shutters, even without
glue.

Haven't seen them made that way in a long time, but it was once a common
method in this part of the country.

As it is a very similar principle, it wouldn't surprise me to learn that
was where old Sam got his idea for screwing his chair joints together?

There's not much new under the sun.

Yeah, all the windows on the old barn use pins (essentially a 16d cut to
length) for the same purpose. If need to make a new bottom rail, for
example, just drive them on through, take it apart and do whatever...

I think the impetus for SM was that his pieces were simply too thin and
he had a long vs end grain joint that wouldn't hold at all w/o a
fastener. Being self-taught, he didn't know any better that he wasn't
supposed to do that. Since they worked and lasted, it became his
standard technique...

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