Help Choosing a Dowel Plate

[Hilton Ralphs]

That is the one I have. My only regret is not ordering the two sizes that do not come with the set of four.

Come on Jim, you only need to find another $21 worth of goodies and then the shipping is free.

[Maurice Ungaro]

i have banged wood through black plumbing pipe and gotten ok dowels. I think David Charlesworth wrote about this. I think he said people bevel the edges too but i got real bad tearout doing that. Maybe with real straight grain. A 90 degree more scraping cut worked better for me.

Best way to reduce/eliminate tear out, and to make structural dowels is to split the wood to a close size, then drive them through the dowel plate.

[paul cottingham]

I have a LN dowel plate, and like it. I would probably go with the LV setup if I were to do it again. I only use a small number of sizes, and the LV seems like it might be less prone to flex.
I hard mounted my LN in a wide, shallow mortise in my bench, and it works well.
I think the most important thing to think about is how you are going to rive stock for dowels. Riven stock is much stronger than cut stock, and Makes much better dowels, especially for draw boring.

[Ron Kanter]

Although nobody here suggested plug cutters, over on Woodnet a few people made that suggestion.
Given that I am more of a plug guy than a dowel guy, I am now thinking maybe I should get a set of good plug cutters instead of a dowel plate. I have a couple of cheap Amana plug cutters, but they produce inconsistent results.
Thinking of either the Veritas® Tapered Snug-Plug® Cutters
http://www.leevalley.com/US/wood/pag...?p=32320&cat=1,180,42288
or W.L. Fuller plug cuttters from Tools for Woodworking
https://www.toolsforworkingwood.com/.../EE-355-PC3.XX
Did I just hijack my own thread

[Kent A Bathurst]

No - you did not hijack your own thread, you just finally came clean as to what in the heck it is you really need.

That's OK - the occasional wild goose chase does no harm.

I have Fullers - no problems. I don't know about the LV, but would bet they are up-to-snuff in terms of de rigueur LV quality.

Don't let the wnet guys know you actually paid 6 bucks here - they will fillet you.

[lowell holmes]

I have two Lee Valley plug cutters. They are top drawer.

However, in my mind, a plug is not a dowel.