Veritas dowel maker

[EddieJ]

Just a quick update on this one as I haven't been on the forum for a while.

Sadly, I still haven't done the YouTube clip yet, but have to say that the tool has easily paid for itself time and time again. I can't find anything to fault with its operation, although I am going to have to upgrade my chip extraction for it.

The biggest surprise came when I finally managed to stop making the 100's of metres of 10mm air dried oak dowel, to produce the dowel that I actually wanted, which was 25mm air dried oak dowel. I had imagined that turning the larger section of wood was going to be more taxing on the drill and somehow harder to use. In fact it was so much easier and far less strain. It was also easier to remove from the tool. The smaller dowel seem to compress slightly, so removal can on the odd occasion be a pain. This is in no way a fault of the tool, but could be something that I am doing wrong.
Making larger section dowel also allowed me to use oak with the odd knot in, where as the smaller section oak had to be pretty much blemish free in every respect to prevent a resonance shear.

I rate this tool a straight ten out of ten.


Edit.. With the smaller section of dowel, it is essential that guide blocks are used, but this isn't quite so critical on larger section material. I guess that the average dowel length has been 900mm in the smaller section material, and the longest in 25mm section was about 1,500mm. I didn't have the room to make it any longer!

 

[woodbloke]

The was a clip on Utube of a guy making some really accurate dowel using the 'pencil sharpener' method. All he did was to drill the appropriate sized hole in a block of wood, saw the top off at an exact tangent and then clamp on a wide chisel to form the blade.
I tried this the other week in the 'shop and it does work, but it's quite tricky to get the saw cut and chisel in the right place. The first time I tried it, I got perfect results (more by luck than judgement I fancy) though subsequent attempts weren't so good - Rob

 

[graham7818]

Eddie (or any other member)

I came across your post and am intrigued to know how you got on with the Vertitas dowel maker.
I need to make approx 250m total of dowelling per year from iroko and oak in 8mm and 10mm size and think that this machine would do it well. What has been your experience with it? I would be hugely grateful for your (or anybody elses's) feedback. I have plenty of material so do not want to buy the dowels ready made.
Many thanks

 

[Jacob]

Lotta dowel to make with a dubious looking gadget!
Large quantities I'd use spindle moulder or router table. 2 passes with a half round cutter.
Small quantities I do by hand plus dowel plate. This would only be possible for shortish lengths for your sizes but the bigger the longer. I just did some 18" pieces of 5/8"

 

[bugbear]

Eddie (or any other member)

I came across your post and am intrigued to know how you got on with the Vertitas dowel maker.
I need to make approx 250m total of dowelling per year from iroko and oak in 8mm and 10mm size and think that this machine would do it well. What has been your experience with it? I would be hugely grateful for your (or anybody elses's) feedback. I have plenty of material so do not want to buy the dowels ready made.
Many thanks

I'm guessing you posted to this thread having read only the first post; if you read the post just above yours, you'll find a detailed (and positive) review of the tool.

BugBear

 

[pitts2112]

I once watched Harry Bryant, boat builder extraordinaire, make dowels by drilling a hole of the correct size in a plank and making a slight counter-sink in the hole. He then took an offcut that was about 1" square and 3 feet long, and used a spoke shave to take it down to an octagon-ish shape just bigger than the hole in the plank. Using a mallet, he drove the whole 3 foot rough dowel all the way through the plank, which compressed the offuct and produced a beautifully perfect dowel stock out the back end. Brilliant in its resourcefulness.

 

[Jacob]

I once watched Harry Bryant, boat builder extraordinaire, make dowels by drilling a hole of the correct size in a plank and making a slight counter-sink in the hole. He then took an offcut that was about 1" square and 3 feet long, and used a spoke shave to take it down to an octagon-ish shape just bigger than the hole in the plank. Using a mallet, he drove the whole 3 foot rough dowel all the way through the plank, which compressed the offuct and produced a beautifully perfect dowel stock out the back end. Brilliant in its resourcefulness.

Very traditional - a refinement is to use a dowel plate which cuts as well as compressing.
The more accurately you prepare the dowel the cleaner the finish. What you do is crudely point each end of your blank and tap them into the dowel plate to mark the circumference and then plane between the marks to join them up. I think it works better if you keep it neat - from square to octagon etc, keeping control of the shape. Handy for planing (or spokeshaving etc) to hold it in a sash cramp held in the vice.
Then hammer it through the plate.

 

[chipmunk]

I'd be interested in whether the Veritas gizmo is any better than these rounders and trapping planes...

http://www.ashemcrafts.com/prices.aspx

Jon

 

[chipmunk]

I know this is the handtool forum but for largish quantities, Steve Maskery has a nice video on a router jig for dowel making which may prove useful....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p4D8lW8uouw

Jon

 

[graham7818]

Many thanks for the replies. I thought I would show the method I have used for the past 8 years or so. Hopefully I have been able to include an image which is pretty much self explanatory.
The cutter I have used is a dowel milling cutter held in a special block in the cross slide of a metal working lathe. The cutter is positioned exactly on the centre line of the 4 jaw self centring chuck and with the axis of the cutter perfectly in line with the bed. We are able to make very accurate dowels using this method approx 320mm in length. Once set up by me my wife makes the dowels whilst I busy myself doing other things.
My reason for enquiring about the Veritas tool is that this piece of kit can make many sizes of dowel and the cutters can be easily sharpened using standard workshop sharpening methods. After making something in the order of 1250 m of dowelling my 2 cutters (8 and 10 mm) are worn out and cannot be resharpened and at £168 each they are a bit expensive.
I am looking forward to leaving my metal working lathe set up as to turn metal!

 

[Jacob]

Strewth! With a spindle moulder and power feed you could do the same thing effortlessly, much faster and with very cheap re-sharpenable cutters.
I guess about 20 secs per metre which makes your 1250M a days work just standing there poking them through while you listen to the radio. Very rough guess I admit.
Basically spinning the wood against the tool is necessary for complicated things, vice versa for simple shapes like dowels.

 

[Tony Spear]

Strewth! With a spindle moulder and power feed you could do the same thing effortlessly, much faster and with very cheap re-sharpenable cutters.
I guess about 20 secs per metre which makes your 1250M a days work just standing there poking them through while you listen to the radio.

God, a whole days productive effort wasted in being a "machine minder" making up a load of dowels - buy in the bloody things! (hammer)

 

[bugbear]

God, a whole days productive effort wasted in being a "machine minder" making up a load of dowels - buy in the bloody things! (hammer)

I'm not sure where eddie could go to buy dowels in the sizes and timbers he wanted.

BugBear

 

[graham7818]

Some interesting responses.
I do not have a spindle moulder and power feed so Jacob's solution is not for me (and I suspect not for many other small workshop users) and buying in accurately machined dowels in the timbers I need as suggested by Tony is also not my solution. Spending hard earned pounds on dowelling when I can make from scrap is not in the spirit of the small workshop and a hour or so now and again using my own kit is not an issue. The money I save means more money for beer.

 

[Jacob]

Router table plus mini power feed?

 

[chipmunk]

I'm not sure where eddie could go to buy dowels in the sizes and timbers he wanted.

Well I think they are available - how about here for starters?...
http://www.toolsandtimber.co.uk/dowels-cat2-230

...but I know what you mean.

I know it's the wrong forum but I think I'd favour the cheap and cheerful Steve Maskery router jig myself.

Jon

 

[bugbear]

I'm not sure where eddie could go to buy dowels in the sizes and timbers he wanted.

Well I think they are available - how about here for starters?...
http://www.toolsandtimber.co.uk/dowels-cat2-230

...but I know what you mean.

I know it's the wrong forum but I think I'd favour the cheap and cheerful Steve Maskery router jig myself.

Jon

Wow - an impressive company! Thanks for the link.

They don't make the iroko dowels I used to peg an iroko bench hook and shooting board though...

BugBear (with a car boot dowel plate)

 

[Tony Spear]

Some interesting responses.
and buying in accurately machined dowels in the timbers I need as suggested by Tony is also not my solution. The money I save means more money for beer.[/quote]

Well, even I can appreciate that!

P.S. has anybody tried Martin Godfrey's method of making dowels on a Woodrat?

I tried it once and my a*****le hasn't yet recovered! :shock: