The Dowel Jig

Against advice from several people here, I decided to go with dowels to attach the (many) "rungs" on the sides of my cookbook shelves.

formatting link
(the drawing)

After turning the idea around in my head during the workweek, I modified my jig a bit. It worked very well. I drilled all of the holes (32 rungs x 4 holes) in about a half hour. This video (prettied up a little, courtesy of my daughter) shows me finishing one piece in a little under a minute:

formatting link

That was actually the first attempt; I got a little quicker at it after some practice.

I had originally considered flipping the piece over end over end rather than rotating it; I could have used the same "fence" for both ends of the piece that way. But there would be a problem if the holes weren't precisely centered vertically. I figured they wouldn't be, so I needed a new strategy.

I decided to use two fences, one for drilling each end of the rungs. That way I could keep the same reference face. I decided it didn't matter if the holes were centered horizontally, which allowed me to use the edges of the drill guide as reference points.

As I started each new piece, I chose the "better" face and faced it downwards. I did the same with the stiles that mate with the rungs. That way the more visible face of each ladder should be well aligned. As it turned out, the alignment seems pretty good even on the other side.

I shot a quick video of how I drilled the holes in the stiles, but my editing staff has gone out for the afternoon. You'll have to wait. In short, I remade the jig to drill into the edge of the long pieces rather than the ends.

Reply to
Greg Guarino
Loading thread data ...

I'm really curious to see how you will match up the holes on your slats with the sides of your shelf unit.

Reply to
Michael

If you mean you are curious to see *if* they actually mate up; I was curious too. Hopeful, but curious.

It turned out to be a good fit. The dowel joints feel nice and snug; snug enough that - after I tested a couple of the joints with all of the dowels - I only put in one dowel on each end of each "rung" for the full dry fit:

formatting link

I was afraid I might have too much trouble getting the parts apart otherwise.

But if you mean how am I going to attach the "ladders" to the front and back "frames", my current plan is biscuits.

Reply to
Greg Guarino

Yeah, that look great!

Reply to
Michael

And while this is a bit crude as opposed to using a jig, these work pretty well.

formatting link

Reply to
Leon

Michael, it would be appreciated if you could trim your quote before replying. You quoted 88 lines to give a 2 line response.

Just in case you're new at this, most news readers will let you highlight some of a message and then click reply, giving you a reply window with only the highlighted text quoted.

And I'll probably get 10 responses saying I shouldn't be critical, so I'll answer in advance. We all started out knowing little or nothing about netiquette. If someone hadn't told us what we were doing wrong, we never would have learned.

Reply to
Larry Blanchard

I have some of those, but I had 256 holes to drill so...

Reply to
Greg Guarino

Thanks. Lots more left to do though.

Reply to
Greg Guarino

One piece of advice. Once you are done drilling the hole.. back the drill out while running. But don't keep it running at the bottom of the hole.

Any tool used to cut, should cut .. not sit there. when you sit at the bottom, you heat the bit up, you polish the fibers (burn) which prevents great glue adhesion, it diminishes the glue adhesion.

Reply to
woodchucker

Against advice from several people here, I decided to go with dowels to attach the (many) "rungs" on the sides of my cookbook shelves.

formatting link
(the drawing)

After turning the idea around in my head during the workweek, I modified my jig a bit. It worked very well. I drilled all of the holes (32 rungs x 4 holes) in about a half hour. This video (prettied up a little, courtesy of my daughter) shows me finishing one piece in a little under a minute:

formatting link

That was actually the first attempt; I got a little quicker at it after some practice.

I had originally considered flipping the piece over end over end rather than rotating it; I could have used the same "fence" for both ends of the piece that way. But there would be a problem if the holes weren't precisely centered vertically. I figured they wouldn't be, so I needed a new strategy.

I decided to use two fences, one for drilling each end of the rungs. That way I could keep the same reference face. I decided it didn't matter if the holes were centered horizontally, which allowed me to use the edges of the drill guide as reference points.

As I started each new piece, I chose the "better" face and faced it downwards. I did the same with the stiles that mate with the rungs. That way the more visible face of each ladder should be well aligned. As it turned out, the alignment seems pretty good even on the other side.

I shot a quick video of how I drilled the holes in the stiles, but my editing staff has gone out for the afternoon. You'll have to wait. In short, I remade the jig to drill into the edge of the long pieces rather than the ends.

Very neat idea when you had to do so many. WW

Reply to
WW

Advice: Do whatever you have to do to get the job done with the tools you have.

But remember, the advice given here is worth what you pay for it. ;)

Reply to
Swingman

Always. "The tools I have" is always a consideration in the design.

It's worth at least twice that. :)

Reply to
Greg Guarino

I took a look at the video. I does look like I "lingered" a bit at the bottom, but that's not my general habit. I slowed down at the bottom of the holes as not to overshoot the tape-marked depth. I'll keep that tip in mind though.

Reply to
Greg Guarino

Here's how I remade the jig to do the second half of the drilling: the

128 mating holes in the "ladder" stiles:

formatting link

[Cheesy caption styles courtesy of Windows Movie Maker and my first attempt at video editing. My daughter, and her better setup, were otherwise occupied. ]

Once I got the system down, drilling the holes was very quick. Not as quick as the "rungs", as I had to line up the reference marks by eye, but still pretty efficient. I think it took as much time to mark up the locations as to do the actual drilling.

I had to be careful; since the pieces are in mirror-image sets and I wanted to keep the same reference face, half of the pieces had to be done in the opposite direction in the jig, with the "reminder" dowel filling a different hole. I also put a flap of painter's tape over one edge of the drill guide so I wouldn't absent-mindedly line up my marks on the wrong one.

Reply to
Greg Guarino

I never had much luck with those. And they don't work for shelf pin holes. I just drilled about 350 holes (7 bookcases) for shelf pins - I used this:

formatting link

and I doweled the top rail of the face frames together with this:

formatting link

Reply to
Larry Blanchard

Those are more for insuring that holes to be drilled will match existing holes, whether they are evenly spaced or randomly spaced. Not really suited for drilling hundreds of holes.

I have the Kreg jig and it is OK. For productions runs I have literally drilled thousands of shelf pin holes with a jig available from Rockler. I bought the jig from Rockler before they changed their name to Rockler in 1995~1997 ish.

formatting link

I pretty much wore out the Rockler jig. So I decided to try the Kreg, I'll probably buy another Rockler for production runs.

The problem with the Kreg is that you have to move the jig way too often, each move introduces the possibility of an accumulated error. The same is true for the Rockler jig but the chances of error are roughly half that of the Kreg jig. Originally I bought 2 Kreg Jigs to be used together for a longer run. the problem there is that the jig does not set flat when the two units are bound together. You have to be very careful to fully flatten the assembly in the work or the holes will be at an angle and not evenly spaced. Then the indexing pin becomes difficult to remove once you remove the clamp because the assembly wants to bow up in the middle again. I returned the second Kreg jig and only use it for short runs. So you really should use a clamp, not at all necessary with the Rockler jig.

Reply to
Leon

Those are more for insuring that holes to be drilled will match existing holes, whether they are evenly spaced or randomly spaced. Not really suited for drilling hundreds of holes.

I have the Kreg jig and it is OK. For productions runs I have literally drilled thousands of shelf pin holes with a jig available from Rockler. I bought the jig from Rockler before they changed their name to Rockler in 1995~1997 ish.

formatting link

I pretty much wore out the Rockler jig. So I decided to try the Kreg, I'll probably buy another Rockler for production runs.

The problem with the Kreg is that you have to move the jig way too often, each move introduces the possibility of an accumulated error. The same is true for the Rockler jig but the chances of error are roughly half that of the Kreg jig. Originally I bought 2 Kreg Jigs to be used together for a longer run. the problem there is that the jig does not set flat when the two units are bound together. You have to be very careful to fully flatten the assembly in the work or the holes will be at an angle and not evenly spaced. Then the indexing pin becomes difficult to remove once you remove the clamp because the assembly wants to bow up in the middle again. I returned the second Kreg jig and only use it for short runs. So you really should use a clamp, not at all necessary with the Rockler jig.

Reply to
Leon

True. But my problem, on face frames for example, was that unless I made a corner alignment jig, I inevitably got the top/bottom of the rails a

64th or so above or below the ends of the stile.

Same problem would have existed with the jig I used, and with any jig where parallax can be introduced by (aging) eyes, but I dropped a 1/4" rod into the end hole and used it to position the jig - no eyesight involved :-).

Reply to
Larry Blanchard

HomeOwnersHub website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.