Dowelling Helpers

[Jim Koepke]

Many of my shelf projects use dowels for an extra bit of strength holding them together.

On my current project a new tool was made to help spread glue on dowels. Then it occurred to me there are a lot of 'little helpers' in my kit of dowelling that others might like to make for their own use:

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There are a couple of mallets for driving the dowels in place and of course the dowels have to be glued. The drill set up has a stop for drilling depth control. The brace has a 6" sweep and I love it for this type of work, thanks Joe. These depth stops, Stanley #49, have a tendency to slip if they are not tight and if you keep turning beyond the set depth. Regularly checking them against the precut dowels is a good pactice.

Below the the brace chuck is a small block held on top of a dowel while driving it home. To the right is a block used with 80 grit sandpaper to shape the top of the dowel before cutting it on the bench hook. The block on the bench hook is ~2" which is a size I commonly use for this kind of work. The end of the long dowel is rounded, set on the hook so a pencil can mark the length, then it is slid across the end to be sawn. On another one of my bench hooks the right hand side was trimmed to be a ramp so a cut dowel would roll off on to the bench.

To the left of the bench hook is a brass tube with a cork on the top. This is used to clean out the dowel holes before installing a dowel. It is set in the hole and then blown through. Make sure your eyes are closed if you do this.

The two small wood blocks are from my earlier work using dowels. They have served as dowel miter boxes and to hold sandpaper for rounding the ends of dowels. They both also have a screw in the right end that can be used to score dowels to make a groove for glue to escape.

On the bottom row there is a rag to wipe up excess glue and a square. The square is important when drilling to dowel shelves:

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It doesn't take being off much to end up boring through the top of bottom of the shelf surface.

The newest addition is the piece of 1/2 inch plastic pipe with a credit card and blue tape. This is a glue applicator:

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A dowel is inserted then a bead of glue is run across the top of the dowel, twist the dowel and the glue ends up as a thin coat on the dowel.

For some reason credit card companies and others keep sending me offers that include these plastic cards. They work great for spreading glue. While setting up to instal a bunch of dowels a piece of scrap pipe caught my eye, hmmmm...

One side was cut through lengthwise, the other side was cut all but about 3/4". Then the waste was cut off across the top. All the little fuzzies were trimmed off and a plastic card was inserted. Blue tape was used to seal off the end so glue wouldn't spill out. It worked pretty good and was less mess than my usual foray in to the land of installing dowels.

After taking the pictures above it occurred that another pair of 'helpers' was left out. Dowels that are a bit too proud are trimmed with a chisel. Sliding a chisel across a surface can leave some unpleasing marks. One solution is to use a very thin piece of scrap with a hole drilled in it to place over the dowel so the chisel has a surface to rest on while trimming the dowel. For this one of my pairing chisels is used bevel down.

It just occurred to me the pencil and saw was also left out of the picture. For cutting dowels my favorite saw is a Japanese pull saw.

Just for fun, here is the current bookshelf project:

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All it needs now is three drawers made, sanding, staining and finish.

jtk

[James Pallas]

Very good Jim. Takes all the bad stuff out of a job that can be trying at times. Small package too. Cigar box would hold everything you need except for the tools that will be close at hand anyway, brace mallets, bench hook.
Thanks for posting.
Jim

[Bill Houghton]

I get those fake credit cards all the time, too, and save them for glue-ups and other purposes. You mentioned using a thin piece of scrap as a shield when trimming dowels that are too proud: have you tried one of those fake credit cards?

The other plastic I find lots of uses for is the hard, stiff plastic used in those d----d blister packs that require tactical nuclear weapons to open, so you can get the thing you purchased out and use it.

Funny story: I read somewhere that some company made a blister-pack opening device, and sold it in a blister pack.

[Pat Barry]

Nice project Jim! I like the proportions.

[Jim Koepke]

You mentioned using a thin piece of scrap as a shield when trimming dowels that are too proud: have you tried one of those fake credit cards?

No I haven't tried that Bill. The plastic cards often have embossed lettering, that plus the hardness of the plastic make me worry about leaving scratches.

Thanks Pat, the top ogees were my first using an ellipsis instead of a circle to lay them out:

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For some reason it seemed like a fun thing to do.

jtk

[Jim Koepke]

Here is one of my 'shields' in use trimming a too proud dowel with a chisel:

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This one is for getting three facets on the dowel end:

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It could also be used to cut six facets by rotating. Doing that and then a flat cut across the top is an interesting look.

Of course a bit of sanding after all of the trimming would obliterate the detail.

jtk

[lowell holmes]

Show off!!