How to cut dowel rod in half

[Gary Herrmann]

You also need to keep in mind that most dowel rods - at least the ones I've come across are rarely straight. So factor that into whatever you plan to do.

[glenn bradley]

First sight down the dowel as if aiming gun. Now rotate 180 degrees and sight down the other end. Find an empty corner in the shop or, more likely, the house. Place the floor end of the dowel about 3" from each wall forming the corner. Lean the upper end back until it gently touches the adjoining wall surfaces allowing the dowel to stand in this position. Now, go find your car keys and drive to the hardware store and buy some half-round.

Seriously, if you want to match a material and I imagine you do. Acquire a router bit with the proper roundover, mill a piece of your material 3" or more wide to the proper thickness and make two runs on the router table to get a half-round profile. Saw off the strip and you have your trim. This removes the problems you would face with the removal of the saw kerf leaving you with an "almost half" round if you were to saw a dowel in half.

[Marc Jeske]

12 yr old post,but for future searchers, I am having to do this, and think I will try this simple idea linked below.
A slight alternate revision to the link video -
Instead of ordering and waiting for the plastic splitter, cut a slot and epoxy in an appropriate gauge of steel scrap as the splitter.

Marc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LWwQIKj9osI

[William Hodge]

First sight down the dowel as if aiming gun. Now rotate 180 degrees and sight down the other end. Find an empty corner in the shop or, more likely, the house. Place the floor end of the dowel about 3" from each wall forming the corner. Lean the upper end back until it gently touches the adjoining wall surfaces allowing the dowel to stand in this position. Now, go find your car keys and drive to the hardware store and buy some half-round.

Seriously, if you want to match a material and I imagine you do. Acquire a router bit with the proper roundover, mill a piece of your material 3" or more wide to the proper thickness and make two runs on the router table to get a half-round profile. Saw off the strip and you have your trim. This removes the problems you would face with the removal of the saw kerf leaving you with an "almost half" round if you were to saw a dowel in half.

I didn't read all this, but shooting a dowel out the barrel of a gun just isn't worth it.

Like my old woodshop teacher, Mr. Ettinger, used to say, "Never ever never shoot a dowel out of a gun in order to split it in half."

Mr. Ettinger was always able to back up his safety tips with Real Life Examples that would make your skin crawl. He must have had something happen to his fingernails when he was with the 1st Marines on Peleieu, because someone always lost them in a dramatic way due to not following directions.

Anyway, back to projectile dowel longitudenal segmentation, the issue at hand. Apparently when Mr. Ettinger was a kid, in 1935, his older brother Billy tried to split a dowel by firing it out of the left barrel of his Father's Baretta bird shotgun. Billy took a hack saw and cut a kerf in the end of the barrel, and fastened a razor blade in there. He took a 12" dowel from Clough's Hardware and stuck it in the barrel. Finally, he loaded it with a bird shot shotgun shell. They took this get up down in the valley behind our house to shoot it, where Dad wouldn't hear them shooting his favorite gun.

They got set up in a logging clearing where there would be a good place for the dowel(s) to land. See, they were thinking ahead. This was Billy's idea, Billy's engineering, Billy's project, but he wanted Dick, his younger brother, to pull the trigger. He was dumb, but not that dumb. He knew the inherent danger of modifying his Dad's favorite firearm and firing experimental projectiles from it: Sever injuries inflicted by Dad. The honors fell to Billy.

Safety off, then click!

Nothing happened.
Again. Nothing.

It turned out that after the last unauthorized use of firearms, their Dad had loaded the shotgun shells with charcoal, and locked up all the real ammunition.

They took the shot gun home, patched the cut barrel with Hoof Doctor Farrier recommended horse hoof glue, and called it a day.

[Bill Dufour]

FYI A machinist vee block often has a clamp. Very similar to a flaring tool for tubing.

[johnny means]

I stick them on a grooved planer sled and mill off the half I don't need.

[Edwin Santos]

A board with a v-notch double stick taped to the bandsaw table?

[Dan Cameron]

You can make this cut easily on a bandsaw. Make a V block and cut a short kerf on one end and in the center of the V. Put a thin piece of metal to act as a "splitter" which will keep the dowel from rotating.