Thread: Crafty DIYers
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Old 08-09-2018, 07:54 AM   #967
glatt
 
Join Date: Jul 2003
Location: Arlington, VA
Posts: 27,717
It's basically dowel joinery, without the glue. But the glue doesn't matter if the "lignin welding" actually does bond between the wooden nail and surrounding wood like they claim. HM is right, though, that it's not going to make a very strong joint all by itself.

I can see it being used to nail decking down. Gravity is holding those boards in place anyway and the wooden nails just keep them from shifting.

Here is the technical data they offer for the strength of their LignaLoc wooden nails. I'm not smart enough to understand what that means. I think shear strength is probably the most important value. They talk about "Shear resistance" being 362 Newtons for the wooden LignoLoc nails. When I look up values for screws to see if they compare, I found this one reference that talks about Simpson screws having "fastener allowable steel strength" in shear of 800 lbf. One lbf is 4.45N, so the steel screws have 3,560 N of shear strength vs. 362 N for the wooden nails.

So steel is ten times stronger than wood.

But maybe you don't need all that strength for everything you make.
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