# Making your own dowels and centers



## fisher (Apr 13, 2017)

Through some experimentation in the shop, I've had some success at this. I put together a couple quick videos showing how you can save some money by making your own dowels and dowel centers. In the first video I make some exotic hardwood dowels that I'll use for accent plugs in future projects. In the second I make a couple of dowel centers and then demonstrate their use. Check them out if you'd like! :thumbsup:

Making your own dowels: Making dowels with a jig - YouTube

Making your own dowel centers: Making dowel centers - YouTube

If you know of a better way to do it, please share. I've tried several different methods but this is the one that has provided the smoothest and most accurate result so far. But if there's a better way of doing it, let me know! Thanks!


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## TimPa (Jan 27, 2010)

we make all of our own dowels. we have found that starting with your square as accurately cut as possible to the final diameter helps, e.g 0.5". then take the care to set up the 1/4" round over so that it is cutting the entire arch and no more. the extra time it takes to set this up accurately is well worth the time saved sanding. then we chuck them into a hand drill (often held in a bench vise, and slide 120 grit up and down until we like it. does not take much if the router is set up well. it will end up around .495" dia.


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## Nathan Parker (Jul 23, 2016)

That's a handy technique! I made some eastern red cedar dowels to use as pins in a firewood rack; I just whittled them to rough size and hammered them through a hole drilled in a steel plate. It worked well enough for my purposes but wouldn't be good for longer or thinner dowels.


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## fisher (Apr 13, 2017)

TimPa said:


> we make all of our own dowels. we have found that starting with your square as accurately cut as possible to the final diameter helps, e.g 0.5". then take the care to set up the 1/4" round over so that it is cutting the entire arch and no more. the extra time it takes to set this up accurately is well worth the time saved sanding. then we chuck them into a hand drill (often held in a bench vise, and slide 120 grit up and down until we like it. does not take much if the router is set up well. it will end up around .495" dia.


I can definitely see how taking the time at the router would pay off. As you saw in the video, I didn't at all but then had to spend time with the chisel and jig to clean things up. Either way works, I suppose. But if the router is dialed in real good then it's probably faster that way.



Nathan Parker said:


> That's a handy technique! I made some eastern red cedar dowels to use as pins in a firewood rack; I just whittled them to rough size and hammered them through a hole drilled in a steel plate. It worked well enough for my purposes but wouldn't be good for longer or thinner dowels.


Nice. Yeah if you're just going to use the dowels for joining then they don't have to look pretty at all, right? The hardwood ones that I made will be used for plugs and accent pieces so I wanted them to be exactly round to fit perfectly into drilled holes. I tried the steel plate technique before with very limited success. Not sure what I was doing wrong. I drilled the hole in the plate, used a file to cut teeth in the hole, and to sharpen the edge. But when pushing the stock through it just got torn to shreds. Possibly my dowels were still pretty square when I tried. I think 90% of the issue is preparing the initial stock and getting it as close as you can to the finished product and then just using the jigs for finishing cleanup.


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