Till lids; holes & pintles

out the back window

Spent a nice half-day in the shop today. First fire of the season in the stove, just a few bits of scrap wood, enough to take the chill off, then it went out. The sun was out so the room stayed warm enough after that. I’ve lived in New England all my life, I like the change of the seasons - today it felt good to shut the doors and windows and close out the rest of the world. Just like in the spring it will be nice to open it up...but that’s a long ways off right now. 

I got a question about till lids the other day when I showed the new box. I’ve written about tills, both in chests and boxes at various times on the old blog and in the book Joiner’s Work. You can see me make tills in the videos I did with Lie-Nielsen and one I did here on making a chest. All those links at the end. 

The question was how much clearance is on the pintle side so the lid can swing open. The pintle - in case that’s a new term for you - is the round tenon on the ends of the till lid, on which it swings open and shut. I saw and chisel the pintles to about 5/16” diameter.

As for clearance, the short answer is sometimes none - sometimes more than that. I’ll show you some of mine and some period examples. Below is the one I was working on today - its pintle hole is right up against the side of the box. I have yet to cut the rabbet yet - it’s easier to bore this hole first. Nose bit.

pintle hole bored in box front