How would you cut game counters from dowels?

[timberfly]

I have a project where I'm making lots of small wooden discs to use as game counters. I'm cutting them down from 3/4" hardwood dowel and each counter is about 1/2" thick. At the moment I'm working by hand with a manual Nobex mitre saw, but after 100+ counters it's hard going.

How would you handle this with a power tool? My priority is clean, accurate cuts to minimise finishing time, so avoiding tear-out on each cut. Safety as well, with no counters flying around the workshop!

I don't have too many fixed power tools, but could consider a chop saw or band saw to make this work (and for other projects longer term). I don't have space at the moment for a table saw, so that isn't an option. What would you do?

 

[Phil Pascoe]

Just a thought.
https://plugitwood.co.uk/collections/plugs

 

[stuckinthemud]

Bandsaw would be my choice, if nothing else the losses to saw kerf are much smaller but it can be quite tricky holding a round dowel against a chop saw fence and the piece will fly away every time. A band saw is relatively friendly. Having said that there is a potential for fingers being very close to the blade - a push stick would be easy enough to fashion though

 

[Cabinetman]

That’s an interesting site, a quick look gives 500 3/4 Mahogany plugs at about £70 + vat and postoge. Or approx 20p each. Bit of a dilemma!
There’s a few ways to make them but no easy way without a bit of fettling needed.
Ian

 

[timberfly]

Thanks everyone.

@Phil Pascoe - I've looked at plugs but need them to be thicker than are available - and there's some fun in the make-it-yourself part.

@stuckinthemud - For a bandsaw, my initial thought is to make a sliding jig with the long part of the dowel clamped down, and run that through to make it safe and repeatable. But is there any way to stop the cut parts flying around? And what would tear-out be on that?

@Cabinetman - I'm just looking to minimise the fettling if there's a way to. I wonder if, with the bandsaw option, I could clamp a few dowels in a row to speed it up? But my concern is then tear-out and flying cut parts.

 

[Spectric]

Make a jig for the bandsaw, you could have 4 holes with stops so each time you get four components, it is how I cut dowel rod down into dowels.

 

[stuckinthemud]

I found a bandsaw doesn’t tend to throw work around as the blade is pushing vertically downward. If you push the work against a fence that also helps limit throw. Sharp blade, clean cut. Not so much tear-out as a series of ridges easily polished out with a file or wet and dry paper

 

[Cabinetman]

If you were to have a jig with holes running though it for the dowels to sit in, bandsaw cuts already in it. Then you need a pile of flat bits of 3/4” bits of wood against the fence, push the jig forwards to cut the first row of counters, pull one of the flat bits away which then lines the jig up ready for the next cut etc etc, the fact that the dowels are contained should prevent a lot of splintering.
Hell its almost machine gun time!
Ian

 

[Spectric]

@Cabinetman gets the idea, it gives nice clean and square cuts and in multiples.

 

[Jameshow]

Butchers ham slicer!!

Sorry I'll get my coat!!

 

[Cabinetman]

Butchers ham slicer!!

Sorry I'll get my coat!!

I once saw an industrial bacon slicer that used blades like an aeroplane propeller, and it was spinning very fast indeed it was quite something to watch. So not so daft!

 

[Terry - Somerset]

If you put holes in the jig, the dowel will need to be supported to give a 90 degree cut, or the table tilted to ensure the blade is at 90 degrees to the dowel.

Alternative - set the fence the required distance from the blade to give a standard thickness. Set the mitre to 90 degrees. Hold the dowel on the table against the mitre and slide forward. Slide back and push the dowel against the fence. Slide forward again.

It would be possible to clamp some wood to the fence to guide cut pieces to the edge of the bandsaw table, and have them drop into a box or bag.

 

[okeydokey]

Would a Dremel saw blade such as -- do the job
https://www.dremel.com/gb/en/p/dremel-multi-max-wood-and-drywall-saw-blade-2615m450ja

 

[ChaiLatte]

Sellotape seven dowels together into a hexagon and cut as one piece with the manual saw. That will reduce the time taken.

 

[Tris]

If your (future) bandsaw is well tuned you could do worse than make a vee block to carry the dowel. This could have a piece glued on to run in the mitre slot. Maybe not as fast as the multi dowel jigs described above but works with a wide range of sizes and requires less adjustment time

 

[HOJ]

Two options, get your head down and get on with cutting them the way you are, that's the fun part of repetitive woodworking, do them in small batches, so you wont get bored.

The other option; give me a shout, as your in Norwich, I'm 15 minutes out towards Loddon, and you can come to my shop and we can set something up, probably on my bandsaw, to try.

 

[Inspector]

A shop vac hose with a coarse screen over the end will pull offcuts away from a saw blade, band or circular, as they are cut keeping fingers out of harms way.
Pete

 

[MF1000]

I once saw an industrial bacon slicer that used blades like an aeroplane propeller, and it was spinning very fast indeed it was quite something to watch. So not so daft!

The commercial units have a cutter head with two ultra sharp curved blades ….come with their own honing machine and a blade set is over £4k !!

Bacon or cooked meat is sliced after cooling down to less than -4 Deg C, and sliced to 1/100th of a mm !!!

 

[Jameshow]

The commercial units have a cutter head with two ultra sharp curved blades ….come with their own honing machine and a blade set is over £4k !!

Bacon or cooked meat is sliced after cooling down to less than -4 Deg C, and sliced to 1/100th of a mm !!!

Tell me about it co op bacon!!

 

[TRITON]

I once saw an industrial bacon slicer that used blades like an aeroplane propeller, and it was spinning very fast indeed it was quite something to watch. So not so daft!

Thats known as a portioner
One of the bigger retail butchers i used to work in had one. And bloody marvelous bit of kit it was too.
Cutting slices from 3mm to 30mm automatically fed.
Bu66er to clean and a bit scary when cleaning the slot the blade crosses over. So much so I use to unplug it before doing so.
It's a big single blade, serrated, and very very sharp.


There is another type with a propeller type blade, but thats a bowl chopper(used one of them too) but the blades are totally covered in used so you cant actually see them working, and its mainly used for preparing/mixing sausagemeat.
In one shop, the boss used to grip the securing nut to slow the blades down on the bowl chopper until that fateful day when he reached in too fast and basically fed his index finger into it.

We were making sausages at the time and i don't believe we scrapped that batch. I mean meat and blood are meat and blood, who is going to notice a bit of finger