Modern pegs are mostly made using plastic with metal springs
in the middle. These are usually very cheap imports that
are very difficult to compete with for profit.
It is still possible to purchase the modern shaped wooden
pegs which are spring loaded in the middle too and again
are mass produced. However, when I was very young, I remember
seeing wooden clothes pins or pegs that you pushed down
on the line. The pegs I remember where made from one piece
of wood but still looked machine made.
Split Peg
Here we wanted to look at a more traditional split peg used
for hanging cloth out to dry. Use a stick of willow or hazel.
Cut it to about 5 or 6 inches. Shave the stick so as to make
a head at one end. Wind and knot some string near the top
of the head (you could cut a piece of tin and nail it in place)
at the point you want to split it to (about half an inch from
the head), this will stop the peg splitting in half. The ("Kosht
is chinned") stick it then split from the base to the
string. The cleft can then be slightly v-notched. Leave the
split peg to dry for a few days before using it.
Tent Pegs
Up until about the 1950s the military were still purchasing
wooden tent pegs and were therefore keeping the craft alive.
Tent pegs are used to hold the guy ropes in the ground,
which in turn hold the tent up.
Traditionally, the peg makers would have set up a makeshift
workshop in the woods and would have worked for up to 12 hours
per day to create new pegs. |
They would fell a tree (most
likely a birch, willow or hazel) and then roughly prepared
logs about 6 inches in diameter and a bit longer than the
pegs required. The freshly cut logs would still be full of
sap and therefore easier to work. The peg maker would use
a 'molly' and 'flammer' to split the log into staves. Then
they would finished the pegs with a draw knife. The finished
tent pegs would have been left to season prior to collection.
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