Dowel cutting

[Herb Stoops]

[Stick486]

A.jpg

[DimitriM]

Hello?

[Herb Stoops]

BLANK


I don't remember anything about this post, I will have to look back in my notes.
Herb

[DaninVan]

*shock!*... you make notes?!

[Herb Stoops]

This is how I make wooden dowels, out of the same wood as my boxes so they blend together color and grain wise. I use a 1/4 round or 1/2 round bit on the router table and cut the square ends off after the round dowel is cut.
Herb

[Cherryville Chuck]

Is this where you got the idea from Herb? Either way it's a good video on how to do that.

I was looking for something else and I came across this method for making dowels on a table saw. It looks like a good method too.

[Herb Stoops]

Thanks Chuck, those are both good videos. I figured it out before I saw a video. I found that if I didn't leave a square piece on both ends my dowels were not round. Like the first video. so I made the blank longer and started a couple of inches from the end and stopped a couple of inches from the end, then cut the square ends off.
HErb

[Stick486]

I cheat...
Veritas to the rescue....
I did get it used for at garage sale pricing...

[Herb Stoops]

I had a set of these that lost in the fire, but I think I like the router table method the best.
https://www.leevalley.com/en-us/shop/to ... on-cutters

HErb

[Cherryville Chuck]

I have one of those Herb, the 3/8" one. I use it to make arrow shafts. I can make maybe two at a time before it gets too hot to hold onto and even then I need a glove and a rag to insulate my hand from the heat. A while back in one of the sharpening threads I posted a method for turning a step down on a dowel on a table saw. It was originally posted years ago by Alexis. All you do is park the miter gauge roughly about even with the crown of the saw blade and gradually lift the blade as you turn the dowel and move it back and forth. You can use the fence to control the length of the step down.

You could also turn a dowel on the end of your spindles in a similar way Herb if you wanted to leave the ends square but needed a dowel end to fit in a drilled hole. You'd just drill a hole in a piece of ply equal in diameter to the distance across the diagonals of the square sections. Then mount that upright next to the saw blade and stick the end of your spindle in the hole and rotate it. You'd want to make the dowel ends before you routed the rest into a spindle.

A handy bit of math to remember if you go that way is that the length of a diagonal across a square is 1.414 times the length of a side.

[Herb Stoops]

Those LeeValley dowel cutters I had I clamped them in the vise, I didn't try to hold them. I believe they came with the square drive adapter for the drill motor. They worked pretty good, but a little rougher than a router bit.
Herb

[Herb Stoops]

I found this type of shop made dowel cutter that is similar to the one I tried to post. The difference in the one I can't find again used a saber saw blade instead of a utility knife blade.
Herb

[Stick486]

How does that work???
is it for resizing???

[Stick486]

I wonder how well a beading plane would work...

[Herb Stoops]

I presume you chuck up a long square piece in a drill motor and run it thru the size dowel slot to make it round. This jig will make 4 different size dowels.
Herb

[Cherryville Chuck]

I presume you chuck up a long square piece in a drill motor and run it thru the size dowel slot to make it round. This jig will make 4 different size dowels.
Herb

I can't see using a square blank through it. The size of the square would affect the size of the dowel. I would think the squares would need to be almost the right size across the flats so that the jig is only taking off the corners.

[Herb Stoops]

The one I originally saw had round hole that the material was fed thru and the cutters were 2 sabersaw blades ,one on each side of the outboard hole w/the teeth down on one side of the hole and teeth up on the other side and a square dowel was fed thru the hole chucked up in a drill motor.
Herb

[Cherryville Chuck]

That makes more sense. Ideally you would want to feed into a cone because regardless of the size of the squares their relationship to the blades remains unchanged. The center of any size square would be in the dead center of the cone.