wooden dowels?

[curtis rosche]

today was my first day back at work now that college is over for the year, i jokingly told my boss we should get a lathe in the shop, one thing led to another and now he is seriously considering getting a lathe or what ever machine is most efficient to make our own dowels. we go through quiet alot every year for the item that we make. being that i have a computer and he doesnt, i became the one who gets to do the reasearch.

whats the easiest way to make dowels that are 1/2''-1'' thick and 3ft long max, mostly only 10''. ? i was thinkinging a midi lathe with a duplicator, but i dont know if there are special machines out there for this or not.
also,,, any idea how many would have to be made to make it profitable?

[Tim Thiebaut]

Personaly I think if you are needing to make a lot of dowels there are easier ways then doing it on the lathe...sorry I know you really wanted a lathe there...check this out....

http://www.leevalley.com/us/wood/page.aspx?p=42331&cat=1,180,42288&ap=1

I really think this is not only easier but much faster then making them on a lathe....
And there are many different kinds, this is just one to show you whats out there....

[curtis rosche]

Tim, i know there are other tools which is why i asked cause i have no clue whats out there, when i say alot or dowels, i mean other 1000 a year. and it would have to work on oak and cherry and be able to produce fast enough pay for labor. this looks like a great tool, it just doesnt seem like the link you provided would handle the load. maybe im wrong and someone who has one can chime in

[Norman Hitt]

For me, I think it would be faster to make 4 passes on a router Table with the appropriate size round over bit for the diameter dowel you want.

Note: I am NOT a turner, although I have owned a couple of lathes, and I have made consistantly sized dowels using a jig I made that I could slide a router along above the workpiece as it turned in the lathe, and it did a great job and you could easily set the diameter for whatever size you wanted. (It has been so long ago, I had forgotten about that jig until now). :D

[Reed Gray]

If you search for them, you can probably find them for cheaper than you can make them for. 1/2 inch are available fairly commonly, 1 inch might be more difficult to find. A moulder would be easiest if you have one, or if you have seen how they make base ball bats, kind of like an over grown pencil sharpener that adjust to different diameters, and CNC.

robo hippy

[Jamie Buxton]

Unfortunately, with just small tooling you probably can't compete price-wise with a factory that's invested in big machinery to make dowels at an extremely high rate. Check the prices at places like Chicago Dowel (http://www.chicagodowel.com/).

[Steve Trauthwein]

Making a three foot dowel on a lathe with consistent size would be a challenge for a pro. There are a number of plans for a home made jig that is simple and quick to use on all types of wood. It uses a router to pass a square piece of wood by that then exits a sized hole when rounded. It is driven by a drill and socket.

Steve

[steven carter]

Curtis,

Check this out!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=dwDjedeJCZ0

[Jim Underwood]

I made one similar to the one in the Rockler link, but I used a router and bit instead of a fixed blade- pretty much what Steve mentiones in his post. The wooden jig tends to wear out running square stock through it, so you'd probably have to make several jigs. If you made it out of steel you could probably make plenty of dowels before it finally wore out.