On Sat, 21 May 2005 15:13:19 -0400, Stan Mulder
wrote:

I've been asked to help a friend replace some old rotting railroad ties
lining a garden area. This time they want to join the ties together in
some way and since I'm not very knowledgeable about woodworking I thought
you guys could give me some ideas. The ties will be just one layer high.
There are four 90 degree angles since the garden is rectangular. The
straight areas will need several ties joined together and I'm not sure
what type of cuts/splices/dowels to use to fasten these things together.
They are fairly large pieces of wood. Any ideas and/or photos are greatly
appreciated.

Those things are likely to eat up any saw you use on them, and they're
full of nasty chemicals to boot- so I wouldn't get too awfully fancy
with it. Have you considered just using the cactus plates that are
often used when making trusses on the bottom and perhaps the inside
corners of the joints? They are not going to have a deep enough spike
penetration to make a free standing stucture out of the suckers, but
the things are just sitting on the ground, and the plates would keep
them from sliding apart pretty well.

Also, if you don't want to dig to set the ties, if you fill the garden
area with topsoil so that it's level with the top of the ties, that
sucker isn't going to go anywhere- especially once the garden gets
going and you've got all those roots holding the topsoil in place.
Then you don't have to till it, either.