On impulse I bought a Lidl electric pencil sharpener (£4.99) a few months ago and found it is absolutely useless for sharpening pencils. However, just now I was filling in dowel holes with plain dowel* (I glue in a 10mm length, wait for glue to dry, then sand smooth) and I remembered the sharpener! This has proved ideal for chamfering off the end of the dowel a tad. Previously I was using a file. So I bung the dowel stick in the sharpener for only 1 or 2 seconds, cut off the length required, apply glue and tap the piece home.
Another useless Lidl purchase that turns out good in the end: Last November (approx) Lidl had a dowel jig, consisting of a plastic holder and three guide bushes, 6mm, 8mm and 10mm. Again, useless in practice, but the other day I needed to drill some dowel holes where the Wolfcraft jig wasn't appropriate. So I took two of the bushes from the Lidl thing, drilled two 16mm holes in a piece of wood and hammered the bushes in. They are a really snug fit. Although I only had one of each size, I've just placed the 6mm and 8mm bushes about 40mm apart, so instead of a row of 8mm I have alternately 8mm, 6mm, 8mm etc.
Perfect!
MM
- The plain dowel is slightly oversize, i.e. 9mm rather than 8mm of the fluted dowel pegs. This makes for a snug fit, but you have to 'introduce' the dowel into the 8mm hole before hammering it in, hence the chamfer needed.