Podgers or framing pins, a blog about timber framing and a place for handmade tools.

First of all, thank you to Sylvain for providing me with a link to a blog where you could see a drawbore pin for timber framing in use (a podger).

Second, I am sorry for the long headline, but I couldn't really sum up all this information in a shorter sentence.

Now back to some meaningful writing:

The link that Sylvain kindly found for me is for a blog of a company called Castle Ring Oak Frame. In one of their posts they had pictures where you could see the large drawbore pins that they call podgers. I instantly got exited and wanted to get some of those so I can start a new timber frame project at home.
Before going all wild in searching for those podgers, I thought that I'd take some time and browse through the blog.
I often find that when a company has got a blog it is mostly advertising in a poorly written form. This blog was completely different though. It is written in a cheerful way and to me it feels a lot more like someone who are so proud of their job that they would like to say: I might not be a self-made millionaire or a sports star, but I make timber frames that can last for hundreds of years - and I am having a great time doing it.
Oh - and they are using Roman numerals to mark the joints :-)

I doubt that I will be using their services to erect a timber frame, because I would like to do that myself, but I am pretty sure that I will read their blog and continue to be inspired by someone making timber frames for a living.

The name podger was new to me, and given that all the podgers used by the timber framing company looked the same, I thought that maybe they were available from new somewhere.
A quick search on Google, and I landed on another dangerous site.
Not the kind of site that will get you in trouble with the police mind you, but one of those sites that could potentially be the source of birthday and Christmas presents for years to come.

There I discovered the podgers (or framing pins) I was looking for, offset prickers, froes axes etc. all handmade.
The offset prickers I can make myself on the lathe, but I think that I will order a couple of podgers for Christmas.

For sake of good order, I am not affiliated with any of the companies, they don't know me and I don't know them, so I don't get any discounts or free stuff etc from them for this blog post.
But I like a well written blog as much as the next person, and I would think that there might be a person or two reading this blog that are willing to admit that they don't mind looking at a homepage with nice tools on it.