Plug or Dowel maker

[Mike OMelia]

I need a dowel or plugmaking tool. Please suggest something I can get ahold of quickly (like something from Amazon) and good quality. Thanks guys,

Mike

[Bob Wingard]

Plug cutters can be bought at just about any decent woodworking supply store ... some LOWE'S even stock a cheap set ...maybe even an ACE HARDWARE.

[Lee Schierer]

Plugs and dowels are generally not made with the grain running the same direction. Plugs are cross grained and dowels are made with the grain running the length. You can make any size dowel you want with a table mounted router with a fence and the proper radius roundover bit. It takes four passes through the router to get a dowel from square stock. You have to use a fence because piloted bits will not have a surface to ride on after the first cut. Cut your stock to the appropriate finished dowel size (I.e. for a 3/4" diameter dowel the stock should be 3/4 x 3/4). Set up the fence so the pilot on the round over bit is flush witht eh face of the fence. Place a feather boards to hold the stock against the fence and down against the table. Start the router and make the first cut. Then rotate the piece counter clockwise along its length 1/4 turn so the surface you just cut is toward the fence but up. Make the second cut and rotate the piece so both previous cuts are up. Make the third and fourth passes. A little sanding for clean up and you have a dowel any length you want from any type of wood.

I wouldn't recommend trying to make cross grain dowels using this method as tearout could be pretty bad and the wood may fracture across the grain.

Making plugs is usually done with a plug cutter. There are a lot of varieties out there, larger sizes get to be expensive.

[Kent A Bathurst]

I make long-grain short [2" - 3"] dowels for pins & drawboring with an LN dowel plate. In fact - I keep some "blanks" handy. When I get annoyed at something that didn't "go quite right", I can take a short break and make a couple dowels - nothing quite as stress-relieving as taking a heavy chisel hammer and simply beating the hoo-haa out of some wood for a minute. :D :D

[Harvey Melvin Richards]

I make long grain short dowels with my tenon cutters. Speed is important as they like to burn.

[NICK BARBOZA]

Lee Valley makes this:

http://www.leevalley.com/US/wood/page.aspx?p=52401&cat=1,180,42288,52401

I haven't used it so i'm not sure how well it works.
NWB

[Myk Rian]

I make dowels with a roundover bit in the router table.
A 1/2" bit for a 1" dowel, 1/4" for 1/2", etc.
Cut the stock to the dowel size and use a 1/2 sized bit.

[Eddie Darby]

http://www.routerworkshop.com/easydl.html

The above link uses a router and a bull nose bit to make accurate dowels from whatever wood you want.

The trick is to not rout all the way through.