Cuyler Page wrote:

> Quote from "The Cloud Sketcher" by Richard Rayner  -  a Finnish
> "Fountainhead" sort of book (written by a Neuh Yauwker so it must be
> accurate):
>
> "It was a fine barn, built in the old Finnish style, with chinks
> between the horizontal logs that let in wind and light, . . . an
> admirable barn in every way."
>
> So, the chinks are the spaces.   So chinking is a verb, not a noun.
> So, what do you use for chinking?    Chinkers, those that do it.   Of
> course, the question remains, what do chinkers use to fill the chinks?
>
>
> cp in bc

The Barnhart Concise Dictionary of Etymology, The Origins of American
English Words says:

chink n. crack 1535, perhaps an altered form of chine(before 1382);
found in chin, chine cleft, split, crack, Old English (about 888) cinu,
related to cinan to crack, split, gape, cognate with Old Saxon and Old
High German kinan to burst open, sprout, Gothic uskeinan to sprout out,
and Old High German kimo sprout (modern German Keim germ, but, sprout).
--v 1552, to crack, later, in American English, to fill cracks (1748).

chink n. 1581, sharp sound; 1573, pieces of money, cash in coins;
probably imitative of the sound. -- v 1589, probably from the noun.

Note Keim as in potassium silicate based masonry coatings.
Note: modern industrial use of 'cluster chinkers' as per the unMeans
hourly labor-rate book.

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