making dowls

Jun 06, 2006 23 Replies

I need some dowls for a project using some exotic stock.



I've tried to buy dowls for a project in the past but none of them are round and most are bent.



Anyone have a jig or tool for making acurate dowls that works?


Some of these are better than others, and it seem to be function of what wood you use and long you are making your dowels.

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I need a hardwood dowel I go to Woodcraft and buy one I can hold in my hand for inspection. I can make the larger ones on my lathe, but for anything around 1/4", I just buy it. I really only use dowels for plugs or decorations, so others might help you better if you need something more specialized.

Robert

  1. Stock squared to diameter needed
  2. 1/4 round router bit with correct radius
  3. Four passes on a router table (leave enough stock square at each end so it will run against table & fence).

This looks a little scary:

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looks a little too complicated:
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you could just take a piece of square stock the appropriate size and run it through your router table using a 1/4 round-over bit on all four sides just leaving the ends square.

I consider a dowel to be a round piece of wood that is completely hidden in a joint or seem. A peg is a round piece of wood that is partially embedded and the remainder protrudes from the work piece. A plug is round piece of wood that is partially embedded and cut flush to the wood.

Sorry for the above but I can not understand why a dowel in the above would need to be made from exotics.

However, what size of dowel, do you need? Dave

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Try these babies! Expensive, but fantastic for chair spindles:

I've seen these but I've heard they don't work very well.

At least that is what I've heard.

Prometheus wrote:

Then you don't need a dowel, you need a plug. DAGS plug cutter. Lee Valley and others have them - in-expensive. Dave

I respectfully dissent. I think he wants a dowel

A plug is cut with a cross-grain orientation.

IMO, there are more definitions/usages than you cite.

Interestingly, dowel, peg and plug are can all used as both noun and verb. IMO "dowel" can refer to any long-grain cylindrical stock... including that which is used to "peg" a tennon.

Cheers,

Steve

the stock diagonal...as the square stock is fed through the infeed hole it is rotated and the router bit cuts it round...it then enters the outfeed hole which is the diameter of the finished dowel.

Ah! I see. Know anyone that has made one.... someone to answer questions.

I wish the plans were better. I'm go> william kossack wrote:

this is not a joining project.

The dowls are needed for a project us>>>>However, what size of dowel, do you need?

So, when you go into the wood store, you ask for round wooden sticks as, by your definition, they can not be called a dowel.

Well - I did say "I consider...". But yes I really don't care what anyone else calls them. Here's some more Daveisams:

Rod - Round stick, not generally used as a dowel. Tube - Round hollow stick, not generally used as a dowel. Pin - Round or multisided stick, not generally used as a dowel, mainly used for indexing.

Dave

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