Exotic woods with figured grain.
Making tiny dowels (4mm)
- Thread starter Rorschach
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Exotic woods with figured grain.
Adam W.
A Major Clanger
Ah, I see......... You like an easy life then?
Adam W.
A Major Clanger
Straight grain dowels and exotic plugs.
Jacob
What goes around comes around.
What are you going to do with these twigs?
We can probably persuade you not to bother.
We can probably persuade you not to bother.
Adam W.
A Major Clanger
He's making dowels for dowels sake, 'coz art has already been done.
Because it will probably take half a day to make the jig, there's a lot of factors going on before it works perfectly, angle of approach to the blade etc
As long as you're using a decent straight grained piece of hardwood, it will work without crumbling. If RC can run a four foot piece of 6mm dowel, then I'd be very surprised if you couldn't run off a few inches of 4mm?
Adam W.
A Major Clanger
Jacob
What goes around comes around.
My guess is cheese and pineapple hedgehog
https://www.missioneurovision.co.uk/recipe/cheese-and-pineapple-hedgehog/
PS I know all about echidnas - I trod on one in Tasmania.
https://www.missioneurovision.co.uk/recipe/cheese-and-pineapple-hedgehog/
PS I know all about echidnas - I trod on one in Tasmania.
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Bryan, is that you?
xy mosian
Established Member
I have successfully made dowels of 4mm diameter.
Take some 4mm thick stock.
Use a semi circular scratch plate, in holder, to work a bead from both sides.
When the two meet. Hey presto 4mm dowel.
The longest I needed to make, and did, was about 250mm.
HTH
geoff
Take some 4mm thick stock.
Use a semi circular scratch plate, in holder, to work a bead from both sides.
When the two meet. Hey presto 4mm dowel.
The longest I needed to make, and did, was about 250mm.
HTH
geoff
It works!
Used the counterbore I had and it made a nice long dowel, quite easy as long as the speed was high and the feed rate low. Just ordered a 4mm version, now to prep some stock and wait by the letter box.
Used the counterbore I had and it made a nice long dowel, quite easy as long as the speed was high and the feed rate low. Just ordered a 4mm version, now to prep some stock and wait by the letter box.
gregmcateer
Established Member
I THINK what the op is trying to say is,
"Thanks folks for all the helpful suggestions - here's what worked"
I THINK what the op is trying to say is,
"Thanks folks for all the helpful suggestions - here's what worked"
Nah, most of the suggestions were rubbish
My thanks do go to the people that suggested the various forms of dowel cutter thingys, that's what sparked the idea to use a counterbore.
For polishing on a metal lathe I use an old car timing belt with wet and dry stuck to the flat side. Just wrap it round and you can stand at a safe distance holding the cut ends of the belt between your fingers. Can't see why this wouldn't work with the right grade sandpaper. Might be tedious to make a lot.
Lots of helpful suggestions here which I'm going to through myself pretty carefully, they look very interesting. For my own part I made the 3mm dowels for this
using just this
.
It has loads of holes for various dowels, but I just used the smaller ones on the bottom edge starting with 5mm square blanks and working down through 6, 5, 4.5, 4, 3.5, 3.2mm holes. The key thing is the slanted cut from the edge of the steel to the hole which acts as a cutter when you spin the blank through on a drill. You might need to splay it out with a screwdriver to get the "blade" in the right position. It's not super accurate unless you're super careful holding the blank at the perfect angle (not exactly 90 deg to get the blade to bite) and you'll probably want to sand down a bit while spinning the blank holding it in sandpaper. 100mm lengths seemed fine, I needed ~1000no 10mm lengths so I guess I must have cut ~100 dowels this way.
Since then I've played around spinning not just the blank but the blade as well, and have cut some 500mm+ 3m dowels this way.
The idea is to use the router table to provide the spinning blade. It works, but is painfully sensitive to exact set up. Take a cube of wood: you're going to drill full depth or half depth holes along all three axes. Along axis 1 drill a hole in the centre all the way through 3mm+, and widen half of it to say 6mm. You're going to spin your blank ín a drill chuck into the 6mm end and get 3mm dowel out the other end. Along axis 2 drill a half depth hole a little bigger than your router bit offset by the right amount to do the cutting, eg 6.5mm for a 10mm cutter. Finally along axis 3 cut an extraction hole just dep enough to reach the cutting area. Clamp the block to the router table with the cutter in the cutter hole, extraction as close as possible to the extraction hole, spin up the router ... And be prepared to do a lot of tweaking!
It has loads of holes for various dowels, but I just used the smaller ones on the bottom edge starting with 5mm square blanks and working down through 6, 5, 4.5, 4, 3.5, 3.2mm holes. The key thing is the slanted cut from the edge of the steel to the hole which acts as a cutter when you spin the blank through on a drill. You might need to splay it out with a screwdriver to get the "blade" in the right position. It's not super accurate unless you're super careful holding the blank at the perfect angle (not exactly 90 deg to get the blade to bite) and you'll probably want to sand down a bit while spinning the blank holding it in sandpaper. 100mm lengths seemed fine, I needed ~1000no 10mm lengths so I guess I must have cut ~100 dowels this way.
Since then I've played around spinning not just the blank but the blade as well, and have cut some 500mm+ 3m dowels this way.
The idea is to use the router table to provide the spinning blade. It works, but is painfully sensitive to exact set up. Take a cube of wood: you're going to drill full depth or half depth holes along all three axes. Along axis 1 drill a hole in the centre all the way through 3mm+, and widen half of it to say 6mm. You're going to spin your blank ín a drill chuck into the 6mm end and get 3mm dowel out the other end. Along axis 2 drill a half depth hole a little bigger than your router bit offset by the right amount to do the cutting, eg 6.5mm for a 10mm cutter. Finally along axis 3 cut an extraction hole just dep enough to reach the cutting area. Clamp the block to the router table with the cutter in the cutter hole, extraction as close as possible to the extraction hole, spin up the router ... And be prepared to do a lot of tweaking!
Stevekane
Established Member
For anyone else looking at making dowels, I used a dowel plate similer to the one Josh shows above, it was just for 1/2inch dowels in oak and worked very well for a minimum amount of effort, the dowels it made were rather ragged with a prounounced spiral groove but sanded up well enough for my purpose and I liked the textured surface feeling it might hold the glue. My initial thoughts on the OPs question were as he had said, spinning up very thin stock could be a problem, but as Josh said, working down through the holes would be the way to go,,,
Steve.
Steve.
Veritas make a 4mm dowel cutter - see Axminster. I take it these are just decoration and not used in joinery of any kind. ?
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