Wenge Dowel

[JAW911]

Somewhere in my workshop is a dowel plate but I cannot find it and I need 5mm wenge dowel to cover recessed 5mm magnets as lid closures on a small wenge box. Any ideas where I can buy some please anyone? I’m not sure Wenge would survive hammering through a dowel plate anyway as it’s so brittle. Can anyone help please?

 

[Inspector]

Are 5mm plug cutters available? If not could you use a 6mm one?

Pete

 

[MARK.B.]

Do you know anyone with a lathe or have one yourself ?, it would be a easy thing to turn a short length to the size you need

 

[JAW911]

Amazing! Two perfect replies! I certainly could look for a 5mm plug cutter and I do have an unused lathe which I forgot about - although turning a 5mm piece could be a challenge. Thanks guys

 

[Richard_C]

Could you pare a piece to roughly right, pop it in your drill chuck and sand? Crude but for a one off job might work OK.

 

[isaac3d]

Another way to produce a dowel is by using a round-over router bit. Make a square cross section stick and then with a round-over bit of the right size for your desired dowel, round over one long edge, then rotate the stick 90 degrees and round over again, do this for all four edges. Only round the middle section so that the ends remain square until you are finished. Having said that, this might be tricky with such a thin dowel. You'd have to be very careful and make multiple thin passes.
Good luck.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

Plug cutters. I would think your wenge will need to cross grained, so dowel won't suit your purpose anyway.
If you use plugs, ensure the grain direction of the plug is the same as the wood you're plugging, else (especially with a coarse grained wood) that way madness lies.