Dowel making

[Cliff Rohrabacher]

Precise dowel making. Any one know a good way?

I have that PDF of a dowel making jig scanned from an old Woodsmith Magazine that you can find online. It has a square strip of stock being fed through ad round hole then across a cutter and into a hole bored to take the rounded stock. I can see it working to make some fairly round stock but, as for precise? Well I have doubts.
Have you tried this jig? How's it work for you?

Any one got a way to make dowels that is reasonably precise and repeatable?

[Lee Schierer]

I make my own dowels with round over bits and a router. I can make any size (diameter and length) that I want. It takes four passes over a router. I use a table mounted router and a fence. I cut the stock to the proper dimension on my TS. Then I run it all the way across the router in one pass. Rotate the rounded edge up and cut the next side. You're done in four passes. Sometimes I get some slight grooves on the lengths from the bearing shield if the fence isn't set just right, but they sand out easily.

[Roger Bolen]

The Veritas Dowel Maker that Lee Valley sells is a little spendy, however it allows you to make very precise Doweling out of any species from 1/4" to 1". I have the full Dowel Maker Kit and it functions extremely well.



Roger

[Brian W Evans]

Lie-Nielsen has a dowel plate (http://www.lie-nielsen.com/catalog.php?sku=DP) that makes dowels from 1/8" to 5/8" diameter. Seems like it would be pretty precise. I don't have one, though, so I can't say for sure. Maybe you could use the jig you described to sneak up on the final dimension and use the dowel plate for accuracy as the last step.

[Cliff Rohrabacher]

I make my own dowels with round over bits and a router. [...] four passes over a router. [.]table mounted router and a fence.[..]run it all the way across the router in one pass. Rotate the rounded edge up and cut the next side.

Very interesting. Seems to me I saw this somewhere. I'd have guessed that it'd be really inaccurate what with the flipping and multiple passes.
You say the result is precise? I gotta try that.

[Cliff Rohrabacher]

Lie-Nielsen has a dowel plate (http://www.lie-nielsen.com/catalog.php?sku=DP) that makes dowels from 1/8" to 5/8" diameter.

I make little dowels that way using a chunk of steel plate in which I drill holes - and don't debur them - instead I file it sharp and square. I'll start with square stock & sand or plane it sort of round and then run it through a couple of holes in the steel plate to sneak up on the proper diameter. It's good for dowels that don't show. Makes 'em nice and tight but, they look terrible and are not straight over any meaningful distances.

I want longer, prettier and and bigger.

[Cliff Rohrabacher]

The Veritas Dowel Maker that Lee Valley sells is a little spendy,

It is spendy. I wonder if that can be duplicated in wood using chisels or plane irons ~?

[Alan Schwabacher]

I've not tried it, but take a look at the video clips on youtube posted by noho91 . He shows several very clever techniques, including making a dowel with a scrap of saw blade and a block of wood with a hole in it.

I hope this is considered an acceptable way to say where it is without a direct link, but you can find the video at the youtube website, followed by this:
/watch?v=dwDjedeJCZ0&feature=user

It would probably be better for getting close, and then should be followed with some more accurate sizing method. But it's pretty cool looking.

[Dewey Torres]

Rob Cossman has a DVD that I own called "The wood hinge box" there is a chapter on how to make a doweling jig from a plane iron and and a piece of wood. If you can got your hands on this DVD, watch it one time and you will have it.

[Michael Weber]

Precise dowel making. Any one know a good way?

Any one got a way to make dowels that is reasonably precise and repeatable?

I made one similar to this, just not as fancy as I needed to make some 3/8 cherry dowels quickly. After a short learning curve it made really nice smooth dowels. I just attached my simpler version to my router table fence for adjusting to the correct size.
http://www.highlandwoodworking.com/index.asp?PageAction=Custom&ID=53

[jim gossage]

yesterday, i needed to turn some 1/4" walnut dowel into 3/16". i took one of those metal screw hole sizing plates (it has 33 holes from 1/16 to 1/2" by 64ths), and pounded the dowel though holes that were successivley smaller by 1/64 until i got to 3/16. i was shocked how well it worked. the dowel was within 0.005" of perfectly round. i have no doubt that the home jigs would work well too.

[Peter Quinn]

I use Lee's method above with the exception that I do not push them all the way through. I stop the cut about 4" from the end to give my push block a square reference and keep a square reference against the fence through all four passes. I mill the stock about .030" over size and tune it in on the drum sander. That and feather boards to keep the stock tight to the fence comes pretty close, usually a few passes with the sanding sponge takes off any minor ridges. If you start with a square that measures exactly .375" you get pretty close to a perfect 3/8" dowel. I usually make them in 3' lengths

I've also drilled the dowel holes 1/64" undersized and tuned the dowels in by chucking them in the drill press and hitting them with sand paper. It sounds crazy but is surprisingly quick and effective for small runs.