Where can I buy a 5/8" doweling jig?

[John TenEyck]

I continually see 5/8" dowels used in commercial man doors, both interior and exterior. I just cut down an interior door that is about 90 years old and the joints were as good as new. I've been using 5/8" loose tenons and cut the mortises required for them with my slot mortiser. That works fine, but takes a lot longer than it would to drill a few dowel holes.

I can't find a dowel jig that uses anything larger than 1/2" dowels. That might actually be large enough but if I can find one with a 5/8" bushing that would be my preference. Also, I would like a jig that references off one face, not a self centering jig. This JessEm jig looks to be just what I'm looking for if it only had a 5/8" bushing option.

Does anyone know of a source of a 5/8" jig like I'm looking for? Any other options and/or comments relative to this task are appreciated as well.

John

[Andrew Hughes]

One machine that’s I’ve seen that comes to mind is Davis and Wells Horizontal Borer. I asked about one from the fellow I bought my jointer from. He said it would never be for sale.
Ive heard they do that one thing very well.
Good luck

[Nick Decker]

Too bad the Jessem jig only goes to 1/2", John. It's a great tool. Any chance you could use two 1/2" dowels side by side instead of one 5/8"? The spacing/registration transfers easily and accurately from one board to another.

[William Adams]

The Dowl-It Model 1500 goes up to 3/4" and includes a 5/8" hole:

https://www.dowl-it.com/4

[Livingston Johnston]

Not dowels but I would recommend the festool domino 700. I've used been using it with doors for over a year and I'm very happy with it

[John TenEyck]

Thanks Andrew. A horizontal borer isn't much different than my mortiser. I think the portable nature of a dowel jig has an advantage when handling large door frame members; bring the tool to the work. Of course, I could spend $1500 and buy a Domino but that ain't going to happen.

Nick, I agree. The JessEm jig looks just about perfect for my needs. I'm not sure if I could use 1/2" dowels off center. Maybe, but I'm concerned about making that approach work with cope and stick joinery. And if I have to use a lot more dowels at some point I might better just stick with loose tenons.

Thanks William. The Dowl-It jig is the self centering style. That could work but I'd rather have a jig that references off a common face. Still an option though.

John

[John TenEyck]

Thanks. As great as it would be to have a Domino, I don't want to spend that kind of money.

John

[Edwin Santos]

John,

For what you are describing, I would consider just making my own dowel jig for the purpose. Lee Valley sells hardened drill guide bushings and inserts for threading and un-threading them from the jig. Unfortunately Lee Valley's offerings only go up to 3/8" in size. So for your needs, I would look for 5/8" drill guide bushings for use in your jig. Here is a link to one source: https://www.mscdirect.com/product/details/07140254

I am a big fan of dowel joinery and own and recommend the Jessem jig. This said, I often end up making a dowel jig for the project at hand if the design of the Jessem does not lend itself to what I need. I only spring for the bushings if the jig will be used a lot, otherwise it gets made at the drill press and used carefully to avoid degrading the holes. The Jessem is fantastically adjustable, but a shop made jig can be somewhat adjustable if necessary through the use of spacers and shims. Here is a video of a craftsman that demonstrates shop made doweling jigs that might be useful to you: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H4YaHDDKbYE&t=0s

I would add that this approach will save you some money versus buying a commercial jig or gadget.

Now having said all this, for a contradictory thought, you could abandon the 5/8" dowel idea, and use the Jessem technique of multiple rows of 1/2" or 3/8" dowels. I think their indexing system which allows rows of staggered dowels is very strong and easy to do. If you haven't seen the video already, see what I am talking about in Jessem's product video on the 08350 jig https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A3tE61O0zzk

I cannot imagine one of these joints failing, even if it were the fraternity's front door from Animal House.

I hope some or all of this helps you,

Edwin

[Bill Orbine]

Mcmaster-Carr has .625 drill guides of many various sorts.... perhaps you can make your own doweling jig with their products.

[John TenEyck]

Thanks Edwin for taking the time to offer your suggestions and those links. I have considered builidng my own jig, or designing one and having a local machine shop make it for me, and will likely do so if I can't find a commercial unit. Another option might be to buy the JessEm and replace the bushings with 5/8" ones or build a 5/8" kit for it.

John

[Mel Fulks]

When a shop did not have real door making stuff I glued up doors with biscuits . Then drilled and added the dowels which
had been driven thru a thick plate with chamfered holes. Mixed just a little water with the Titebond 2. The dowels would
swell and hold well. A lot of those doors were 2 and 1/4 thick. We never had a failure or a complaint about the dowel ends
showing.

[mreza Salav]

I built over 30 doors with 1/2 dowels (32 in each door) and drilling those many holes wasnt easy on my wrists.
(i know with glued plywood panels I could use much less but...)
If you make doors buying Featool is worth it over time. I have it now and qish had bought when making those doors. So much faster and easier.
If you are really set on 5/8 dowels make your own jig. Its simple and works great with some good quality bushings.

[Jim Becker]

Thanks. As great as it would be to have a Domino, I don't want to spend that kind of money.



Since you do quite a bit of door work as evidenced by your work displayed here, I suspect a Domino 700XL would pay for itself pretty quickly in time and level of effort. The 14mm x 140mm tenons are really great for both building new and for repairs like you describe. I've already done a few doors as well as some furniture things and I'm uber-impressed with the system. I'm really sad I waited so long to acquire mine! But yes, the initial investment is what it is...

If you cannot find a commercial doweling jig, it probably wouldn't be that difficult to make one up using some hardwood and plywood that would allow you to register a hole to one face of the door and a positioning line as well as provide enough thickness to guide the drill bit straight and perpendicular to the face you're drilling.

[Prashun Patel]

Seems like an easy job for your Horizontal boring machine to build an app-specific jig into which you can drop a couple 5/8"'s bushings.

[Charles Lent]

John,

Add a spacer to one side of a Dowel-It jig and it will off center the holes by whatever you want. I've used a spacer and a piece of double sided tape to keep it attached to the jig and it has worked very well for me. I wasn't doing 5/8" dowels, but that shouldn't matter.

Charley

[Brian W Evans]

I agree with Edwin's idea of a homemade jig, especially if your spacing doesn't vary.

That said, this task just screams "Domino". Drilling lots of holes is rough on the wrists, as Mreza said, and I think this is a HUGE consideration. The Domino solves this problem, is adjustable, repeatable, and faster than dowels.

Another consideration is that the Domino has excellent dust collection. Doweling jigs do not. I have a DowelMax and use pocket screws. Both leave lots of annoying wood crumbs all over that constantly have to be cleaned up.

Maybe someone in your area has a Domino you could try out? I know my local Woodcraft always has one out for people to try.

[John TenEyck]

Thanks for the additional replies all.

Charlie, I don't see how adding a spacer to one side of the Dowl-it jig will make it register a constant distance from one side of the work piece; seems like it would just shift the centerline. But maybe it does and I'm just not visualizing it correctly. Can you confirm it does?

Like I said earlier, I'm not looking for a $1500+ solution. I don't build enough doors to justify the cost of a Domino and although it's faster and easier to use than my slot mortiser the end result is no different or better. For smaller M&T work my horizontal router mortiser does nearly everything a Domino does and some things it can't so I can't justify it for regular joinery work either.


John

[Jim Chan]

+1 for the domino. Just get it and be done with it.

My progression was Dowelmax, biscuit jointer, a used General 75-075 mortiser, then finally Domino df500. When considering the first 3, I considered the Domino each time and kept putting it off thinking it was too expensive for what it was. Though each tool has it's place in my shop, I wish I had just broke down and bought the Domino first - it really is just so much faster and versatile than any of the other solutions. I still use the mortiser for larger joinery/though tenon work, but I rarely pull out the doweling jig or biscuit joiner anymore.

Doweling jigs like the dowelmax do work well, but it actually takes surprisingly long to clamp the jig, pick up your drill, put your drill back down and wait for it to spin down (I found my 18v dewalt cordless drill lacking in stamina/speed for these operations, so use my corded drill), then unclamp and move to the next joint. Compared to the domino: reference, plunge. May not seem like a big deal, but when you have to do it a few dozen times on a project it gets old. Also, i always found it a bit tricky to reference and come up with clever clamping solutions for the dowelmax if I needed a dowel in the middle of a panel, or in an angled joint. Both situations are handled with ease with the domino.

[Jacob Mac]

I would see if I could find a machine shop to fabricate something. Of course, that assumes I am dead set on 5/8 dowels.

But if it were me, I would go 1/2 dowels and get a dowelmax or something similar.

[lowell holmes]

I would try to make one out of white oak. I think it would work.

[Charles Lent]

Thanks for the additional replies all.

Charlie, I don't see how adding a spacer to one side of the Dowl-it jig will make it register a constant distance from one side of the work piece; seems like it would just shift the centerline. But maybe it does and I'm just not visualizing it correctly. Can you confirm it does?

Like I said earlier, I'm not looking for a $1500+ solution. I don't build enough doors to justify the cost of a Domino and although it's faster and easier to use than my slot mortiser the end result is no different or better. For smaller M&T work my horizontal router mortiser does nearly everything a Domino does and some things it can't so I can't justify it for regular joinery work either.


John

Isn't that what you are trying to do? The gauge itself will by it's design always locate the dowel hole centered between it's two sides. Add a spacer to the jig and the jig will need to be opened farther, but will center itself on this new wider setting and the dowel location will be offset from center of your work piece by 1/2 the width of the added spacer.

Yes, I have done this, but not to drill for 5/8 dowels. I was offsetting a table apron to leg joint.

Charley

[Kevin Jenness]

Indexing for dowel joints, especially with multiple dowels, is demanding. Any lateral offset compromises the joint and makes it hard to assemble. I would suggest a jig with multiple bushings wide enough for your widest rail.

That said, I don't really see the point of going from inserted tenons to hand drilled dowels. The time saved will not be that significant, the joints will have less long grain surface area and your shoulders will not thank you.

[John TenEyck]

Indexing for dowel joints, especially with multiple dowels, is demanding. Any lateral offset compromises the joint and makes it hard to assemble. I would suggest a jig with multiple bushings wide enough for your widest rail.

That said, I don't really see the point of going from inserted tenons to hand drilled dowels. The time saved will not be that significant, the joints will have less long grain surface area and your shoulders will not thank you.

I spent an hour or so designing a dowel jig for a 1-3/4" door just as you suggested Kevin, one that would fit both typical 5" top and 8" bottom rails and that could be shimmed out for 1-3/8" doors. And then I looked at it and saw how little glue surface area those dowels would present. It pales in comparison to those big loose tenons I use now. But I've seen lots of exterior doors like one I just cut down built with nothing more than 2 dowels in the top rail and 3 in the bottom and still be solid after several generations so clearly it doesn't take a lot. The guy who mentored me on door construction uses dowels, and even said he rarely glues them in, that it's the stub tenon and cope/stick joint that provides the surface area that holds the door together. I never bought into that argument, obviously, if I'm using big loose tenons, but he's built a lot of doors.

At this point I'm going to stick with big loose tenons on external doors but am likely going to build a dowel jig for interior ones.

Thanks for all the input, everyone.

John

[Edwin Santos]

I know this is off topic a bit, but this discussion, especially John's last post, has me thinking about dowels and glue surface area. Jessem's recommendation with their jig is to use more dowels versus fewer larger dowels. This makes sense to me. After all, you can do a quick calculation to see that two 3/8" dowels in an offset pattern would be considerably more glue surface area than one 5/8" dowel. Of course this is handy for Jessem in touting the detent indexing feature of their 08350 doweling jig but I can say it works. I have done several joints with multiple 1/4" dowels set up in an array of 3,2,3 for a total of 8 dowel pins in the joint.

It also raises the question of the larger glue surface area of a tenon, and an even more subtle question of tenon long grain surface area versus the round dowel pin and the grain pattern around it. Then there's also the issue of the theoretical versus the practical reality. Matthias Wandel did an experimental strength test comparing the failure of a mortise and tenon to dowel joint and the dowel joint performed very comparably to the M&T.

I've concluded that as woodworkers we are oriented toward looking for the strongest possible joint, glue, whatever. But there's an inconvenient fact that once a joint is strong enough for the practical real world, any more strength is serving no real purpose. Looking at the story of John's door mentor's methods, and realizing I cannot recall ever seeing an entry door joint failure, I wonder if we sometimes over-think the strength aspect of questions like this. Maybe the answer is it's all good, and just use the tools your have or the most expedient method you enjoy.

Sorry for rambling,
Edwin

[John TenEyck]

Not at all, Edwin, discussing is always good. Your example of two 3/8" dowels vs. one 5/8" dowels only shows a 20% increase in surface area. If that would be the difference between success or failure of joint then neither is robust enough. Nevertheless, I understand your point but there is even more to it than that though you have to start asking where it stops and what's good enough, as you said. You could argue that about half of the surface area on a dowel is glued to end grain in the bored hole it fits into, compared to nearly all of the surface of a wide tenon being face grain to face grain. On the other hand, wide tenons suffer from seasonal cross grain movement and using a rigid glue like epoxy would seem to be the wrong choice yet I haven't had one open yet. I limit tenon width to about 3" so maybe that's OK.

I've wondered why wide bottom rails on exterior doors don't crack more often or why the joints don't show signs of that cross grain movement. I have seen quite a few of both those problems on doors directly exposed to the weather and facing South or West, but I would expect it to happen even in doors with no direct sun exposure just from seasonal movement. But apparently it doesn't, and that could be how my mentor justifies using dowels and relying mostly on the glued coped joint. I'd ask him but I've lost contact with him so I'm left to wonder.

Joe Calhoun, if you happen to read this I'd appreciate your insights. Thanks.

John