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Thread: dowel rods

  1. #1
    Join Date
    Mar 2004
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    Troy,Tn.
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    dowel rods

    Does anyone know of a way to make dowel rods besides using a lathe?

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Feb 2003
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    Tidewater, VA
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    Roger -

    There are dies that one can drive an appropriately sized piece of wood through. <a href="http://www.leevalley.com/wood/page.asp?SID=&ccurrency=2&page=42331&category=1,18 0,42288">Lee Valley</a href> makes a tool that you attach a square blank to a drill and run it through.

    How long of a piece do you need?

    Regards,
    Ted

  3. #3
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    Feb 2004
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    Fayetteville, AR
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    31
    Quote Originally Posted by Roger Eihausen
    Does anyone know of a way to make dowel rods besides using a lathe?
    http://www.lie-nielsen.com/tool.html?id=DP

  4. #4
    Join Date
    Apr 2004
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    20 miles NW of Phila, PA
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    dowel rods

    Roger,

    I've seen "shop tips" where using wooden v shaped jig(s) and a router with flat bits, you can make dowels. With the setup, you can either get close and finish with sanding or one of those "hole" things mentioned above.

    You may also want to check out www.midwestdowel.com. They carry a wide many kinds of wood (red and white oak, hard maple, hickory, poplar, walnut, cherry, mahogany, teak, beech and ash) in sizes 1/4" to 1-1/4" and poplar in sizes 1-1/2", 1-3/4" and 2". Fast shipping and very good prices.

    Regards, Joe
    Two weeks, your project will be done in two weeks!!! (From the Money Pit)

  5. #5
    Join Date
    Feb 2003
    Location
    Oak Ridge, NC
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    458
    Don't know if I can paint a very good picture with words but here goes.

    Way back I worked as an apprentice to an old time gunsmith. Mr. Mark Burnham was born in the late 1800's in a smithy about 5 feet from the anvil, he told me. We didn't run a parts changing gunsmith shop. We made every part from scratch, no matter what the repair was. Coil springs, flat springs, screws, sights, sears, triggers - what ever.

    We made ramrods for muzzle loading rifles. They are nothing but dowel rods but made a little more carefully. We had some very straight hickory that we split from a trunk. Once it was split you had the grain running parallel to the rod so then you could saw it on a table saw. We sawed out 1/2" square sticks about 5 ft. long.

    Take a block of wood and drill a stepped hole through it. Oak, hickory, maple what ever, just a good hardwood. The larger diameter is the distance across the dowel blank. For a 1/2" square that is about 11/16 in. The smaller of the step is the size you want the dowel to be.

    Make a blade out of some kind of good tool steel. We cut up power hacksaw blades to make small cutting tools out of. It works well for this. On the end of a power hacksaw blade is a hole and most of the blades are rounded over on the ends. That is perfect for a blade for a dowel cutter. You use the hole to put a screw through.

    Cut into the block of wood right where the stepped hole changes dimension. Cut in such a manner that the cutting edge of blade you make hits the center line of the stepped hole.

    Mount the blade so the rounded part starts in the larger hole and finishes just inside the smaller hole.

    Take one of your sticks and whittle one end into something that approaches round. Whittle the other end so it is pointed for about 2 in. or so. Put the rounded end in a three jaw chuck on a lathe or in a drill motor. Put the pointed end into the larger diameter hole on your wood block dowel cutter. Fire up the motor and get things turning. It takes a time or two to get the hang of this. You hold your cutter in one hand and hold the center of the spinning blank with the other hand. If you are using a lathe then you force the cutter down the dowel blank as the cutter cuts it round. When you are about 1/3 the way along the rod you switch hands. Hold the cutter with the other hand and the finished end of the dowel with the hand that was holding the cutter. Do this with a drill motor and you might want someone to help, but if you fix the drill motor in a vise you will have pretty much the same process.

    When the cutter reaches the end of what was the blank and is now a dowel you shut the motor off very quickly. This can be quite a trick sometimes with 5 ft of 3/8 in. dowel whipping around, you got to let go of something to turn off the machine or you need some help, until you get the process down pat.

    At that point you have a dowel and just cut the ends off to make what ever finish length you want.

    For ramrods we left the dowel in the lathe and sanded them smooth, put them in a long pipe full of linseed oil and let them soak for a week or so. Heated them with a gas flame to drive the oil into the wood, polished with steel wool. Put what ever hardware we wanted on the ends, if any and put them with the rifle they were intended for.

  6. #6
    Join Date
    Feb 2003
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    McKinney, TX
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    I've made them with a stepped block like Mac is talking about except instead of the blade I used a router with a straight cutter. I drilled a hole for the cutter perpendicular to the stepped hole and placed so the cutting edge was right at the step. Chuck the blank in a drill motor, turn on the router and push the blank through. When I did this I made the block big enough to clamp it in my vise and held the router on it with doublestick tape and a couple c clamps.
    Steve Jenkins, McKinney, TX. 469 742-9694
    Always use the word "impossible" with extreme caution

  7. #7
    Join Date
    Nov 2003
    Location
    Austin, Texas
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    Roger, if you have a router table and a round-over bit you can make dowels. You have to plane the material to exact thickness, and then cut to exact width, and then make four passes over the round-over bit with the last pass held with a good pushing device like a Gripper. A 1/2" round-over bit will give you a 1" dowel. I have made 1" to 1 1/2" dowels very easily with this method. J.R. Beall showed me this years ago. He outlines this method in "The Nuts and Bolts of Woodworking".

  8. #8
    Join Date
    Feb 2003
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    McKean, PA
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    Blog Entries
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    Making Dowels

    You can easily make dowels using a table mounted rouer and round over bits. Set up the router with the proper radious round over bit for the dowel you want to porduce. Make a square stick of wood exaclty the dimensions of the finished dowel and at least as long as you need the dowel to be. Set your router fence so the round over bit rounds off one corner of your stick exactly even on the table surface and fence surface. Clamp a feather board in place to hold the stick against the fence during the cut.

    Place the stick on the table. Route one edge. Rotate the piece so the routed surface is up and against the fence. Route the second side. You now have a half round piece. Repeat the routing steps twice more and you have a dowel.

    Some people like to leave an inch or two on the leading and trailing end of the stick square so the dowel stays square to the table and the fence. These ends get trimmed off after the routing is done. I'vefound that this extra length really ins't needed. Your dowel sizes are limited only by your selection of roundover bits for your router.
    Lee Schierer
    USNA '71
    Go Navy!

    My advice, comments and suggestions are free, but it costs money to run the site. If you found something of value here please give a little something back by becoming a contributor! Please Contribute

  9. #9
    Join Date
    Jul 2004
    Location
    Fort Worth, Texas
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    If you need something less than 1/4" you can use a shipbuilders dowel maker. I bought one for my brother who makes ships in a bottle. He can make a dowel down to about a 1/16" with no problem. Can get the dowel maker at any good hobby shop.

    Betsy

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