Dowel Plate Woes

[Don Dorn]

I borrowed a friends and discovered the same issue. In wanting to make a dowel hinge for a small box, I tried a few things to make them but discovered the best was to buy a dowel of that species and then run it through the dowel plate. It goes in easily but not perfect, but comes out that way. To ask more of it seems like a headache.

[Eric Brown]

Try using a little wax on the dowel. It runs through much easier.

Eric

[Danny Burns]

Split off a little piece of cedar, knocked the corners down, sharpened it a little, and banged it through the 1/4" hole. Hmm, not too straight. Or smooth. Or round.

Well, it's my first try, I think. I do it again. Same thing. Again. Even worse.

Three things come to mind.

1- Bad dowel plate, might need sharpening.
"Maintenance: If the dowel plate ever needs it, hone the top cutting surface with water stones to sharpen. Keep oiled to prevent rusting."

2- "Short pieces are easier to handle, but any length is fine. When making your own dowel, get ***as close as you can*** to the correct size with a plane, spokeshave or drawknife. The blank does not have to be very smooth, though small facets will disappear quickly. A bit of experimenting will tell you how close to make your blank, depending on the type of wood, length of dowel and how smooth a finish you desire. Chamfer the leading end of the blank to make it easy to start the cut. Hammer the blank through the hole. You can also use it to size purchased dowels."

Above two quotes from : http://www.lie-nielsen.com/catalog.php?sku=DP


3- Softwood problems.


"David Charlesworth extols the virtues of making dowel plates
to turn offcuts into hardwood pegs" - from PDF

http://www.lie-nielsen.com/pdf/charl...dowelplate.pdf

[Michael Peet]

Thanks for the excellent feedback everyone. I did use split, straight-grained stock. Harry, thanks for the pointer on hammering "fair and square"; I will try to concentrate on that.

Just to be clear - this is very nicely made piece of hardware and I didn't intend to dissuade anyone from getting one. As with so many aspects of this craft, it looks easier to use than it is

Best,

Mike

[harry strasil]

in the FWIW dept,

According to the old mentality or way of doing things there were no dowels per se, anything under a 1/2 inch was called a pin, 1/2 inch up to 1 inch were called pegs, 1 inch and over were called Trunnels, a misspronunciation of treenail.

Generally the old timers did not glue there wooden nails in, they were made oversize and this along with the crookedness of the fasteners made for a very tight fit.

Also when there was a barn or house raising, the children who could help often were put to work making Trunnels by driving riven material thru plates of iron with a hole in it with a mallet over the open top of a barrel, often times said barrel was an old one made by a wet cooper and had some linseed oil in it which helped lubricate the Trunnels.

If you have ever attempted to salvage the timbers from an old timber frame structure, you will find that even after all the years it has stood you cannot back out the Trunnels.

This is because the Trunnels were oversize and pointed and when driven in the tapered end automatically drew the joint together like WWers now use drawbore pins for. and the oversize fastener bent the end grain of the timbers to effectively LOCK them in place.



Old structures often had any floorboards and siding pegged or pinned in place instead of using nails, as when you nail something, the metal nail swells and shrinks with temperature and automatically draws moisture which starts rotting the wood its driven into.

You might wonder how simple pegs could hold flooring and siding on. Well if you nail or peg or pin something correctly, you never drive the fastener straight in, but the fasteners will be slanted towards each other \ / , which is an effective method to prevent the fastened piece from spring loose or pulling up because of warping.

In really old homes and buildings, the floor boards were also joined at the edges with inlaid dovetailed pieces, which were called butterfly's to keep the flooring from having large cracks between boards when the shrank from the drying process.

I hope this is a good galoot/neander explanation of things from the past.

[Eric Brown]

Thank you so much for the historical perspective Jr..
When you going to write a book for us?
I love learning from people like you.

Eric

[Don C Peterson]

To amplify a bit on Jr's comments, it doesn't matter if the dowels are perfectly straight or smooth. The benefit of using a dowel plate is that the dowels follow the grain. In turned dowels there is almost always grain run-out which makes the dowels significantly weaker but potentially straighter.

Grain run-out, particularly when drawboring, is potentially disastrous.

[harry strasil]

I'm just passing info I gleaned from already written old books, I like to read, and collect every old technical manual I can.

[Ian Coop]

Hello Michael, I too had results similar to yours. I use a v groove and stop in a block of wood and a block plane to take the straight grained wood down to an almost round blank with a diameter slightly larger than the intended dowel.

I then cut the blank into pieces 1 to 2 inches in length, depending on what I need.

The blanks are then sharpened on one end with a blck plane or pencil sharpener.

Reverse the steel dowel plate. In other words drive the blank from the side of the plate that does not have the size etched into it, the side that has the .006 clearance. This shaves the blank close to the size required.

Then place the dowel plate right side up again and pass the blanks a final time through the holes the right direction. This shaves the final diameter.

Most of the dowels created remain pretty straight and most do not have too mcuh in the way of tear out. Use a little wax on the dowling plate as suggested too.

Strange but true, it works better for me.

Ian

[David Keller NC]

Michael - I have and frequently use the L-N dowel plate. As you may have gathered, this gizmo works very well for making drawbore pins and wooden pegs, but the name "Dowel Plate" is a bit misleading.

One wants reasonably close to straight drawbore pins and pegs to secure mortise and tenon joints, but this tool is not capable of, nor designed for, making dowels in the sense of something you might use as a visible part of the construction - say spindles for a Windsor chair, or parts for a wooden hinge.

If that's what you need (perfectly circular and straight dowels), the best method is to make them on a lathe out of riven stock. Dowels in the store are usually not circular, as the manufacturing process uses somewhat wet stock that's pulled through a die with hydraulics. Once the dowels dry thoroughly, they aren't round anymore.

[Michael Peet]

Interesting Ian, I may have to try that.

David, I don't need anything that long - just a couple inches. They would be used as pins in a mortise and tenon joint, for both structural and aesthetic purposes. For the visual reason, I was hoping they would at least be round where I cut them off to prevent any gaps.

Thanks guys -

Mike

[David Marcus Brown]

Good stuff. I wanted one but the price is incrdeible. Can't believe one of the irnomongers on this site or Woodnet.net hasn't knocked them off. Not surprised that cedar won't work. I'd figure on using something harder and straighter. I'm saving for a LN low angle block plane and I screwed up not getting it when it was $75.00 instead of $95.00 so I get my dowels at Home depot.

I needed some 1/4" dowel last weekend and all I had was 5/16ths. Looking in the shop I had a scrap of mild steel so I drilled a 1/4" hole in it. That did the job nicely.

I need to relieve the back of the hole a little to make extracting the dowels easier. I like the design of the LN plate -- it inspired me to make my own.

[harry strasil]

Just for the heck of it, I got a piece of old somewhat punky cedar and tried makeing a couple of dowels. LOL I just rived them with a knife froe and tapered the ends with a chisel and drove em thru. a 1/4 and a 3/8.

[David Barbee]

I also have the Lie-Nielsen dowel plate. I have a few tip, hints & suggestions..

• If you looking to make a 1/4 dowel, plane a board down to 5/16 and then rive your blanks. Do your best to keep the blanks square. This will remove most of the waste wood for you. They will be much so easier to drive.
• If it first you don't succeed, get a bigger hammer. I have a 3lb sledge that I use for 3/8+ dowels. I get more controlled power and a much larger head. As your arm gets tired or you are trying to hit the dowel to hard, it is easy not to hit the dowel square.
• This is caveman woodworking. If you were the kid that refused to believe that the square peg wouldn't go though the round hole, then this is the job to you. The dowels that result from this brutality are not going to be very pretty. They will however be very strong and well suited for pegging mortise and tenon joints.
• If you are using your workbench, make sure you put the dowel plate as close as you can to being over the leg. This transfers the power from the blow directly to the floor. Not only does this mean you can take less hammer blows, it also means that the dowel plate won't be jumping around and you hammer blows will be more accurate.
• There is a reason why peg making was left to apprentices. It's a lot of thankless work.

David B.

[David Marcus Brown]

Just for the heck of it, I got a piece of old somewhat punky cedar and tried makeing . . .

Harry, you're like the MacGuyver of woodworking. I think with some wood and your tools you could make just about anything. The world needs more guys like you.