Description
Buying dowels is easy if you need something like poplar or oak. But what if you need a dowel made from walnut, maple, or even an exotic wood?
I’ve practically written the book on dumb ways to make a dowel, as you can see here with a miter saw jig I made a few years ago. It works surprisingly well for a while before friction and heat can leave you with burning and an inconsistent diameter.
For smaller dowels, and this is 3/8 inch and below, all you really need is a hand drill.
Grab a cheap wrench that’s close to the diameter you need and modify it.
I’ll grind away part of the upper jaw and sharpen the inside edges of the opening. This turns the wrench into a cutter that will bring the spinning stock down to a consistent diameter.
I’ll cut a square blank slightly oversized, chuck it into a hand drill, and spin it through the modified wrench. If you can’t get the dowel to fit into the end of your drill, round the end on a sander, or use a socket adapter and socket to wedge it in place, and you’re ready to go.
You can do it by hand, pushing the wrench away from you or toward you, but a hole in the bench makes shorter dowels easier because the bench supports the dowel while you push against the wrench.
For larger dowels, and this is between 3/8 inch up to an inch, I go with the lathe. The problem is getting the entire length to the same diameter. You can stop, check it with a caliper, cut a little more and repeat, but there’s an easier way.
Just like with the hand drill, I’ll start with square stock slightly larger than the dowel I need, remove the corners, and rough it round on the lathe. Then I’ll use the modified wrench to bring the entire length down to size.
Instead of constantly checking the diameter with a caliper, the wrench becomes both my cutter and my sizing gauge. I can work forward into the stock or move laterally along it, and once the wrench fits over the dowel, I know I’ve reached a consistent diameter.
You may be expecting the wrench to leave us with a perfect, ready-to-use dowel, but I don’t want that. I want the dowel slightly oversized. That gives us a chance to use sandpaper to clean up any tool marks or burning while also letting us sneak up on the exact fit.
So whether I need a larger dowel on the lathe or a small one with a hand drill, the same set of modified wrenches lets me make dowels from just about any wood I have in the shop.
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