Thread: Spotted Gum Dowel

Welcome.
It would seem that you have to make your own.

Al

Obviously I could make my own!!! However, I am trying to use this material as part of a production run and to have the dowel already made would be much more efficient for the rest of the piece!

The absolute minimum for repeated production of spotted dum dowel is a spindle moulder with power feeder.

Though a 4 sided moulder would be much better and could cut 3 or 4 dowels in one pass of a 4 x 1 board.

Otherwise see if Glock? knows a mill who would do it for you but its likely you'd need to order a huge amount

Is this an opportunity for a Forum member to turn a few metres of the stuff for CA$H ?

I often make odd sizes or matching timber dowels on my saw bench. For 19mm dowel make a square about 22mm and cut the corners off to make an octogon. It will need to be about 1.8m minimum length for safety. After making an octogon feed the timber into the saw slowly and rotate it by hand at the same time. The saw blade needs to be above the bench about the same height as the dowel thickness. Sounds complicated, but if you think about it for a moment, the application is limitless.
Jim

Originally Posted by echnidna

The absolute minimum for repeated production of spotted dum dowel is a spindle moulder with power feeder.

Though a 4 sided moulder would be much better and could cut 3 or 4 dowels in one pass of a 4 x 1 board.

Otherwise see if Glock? knows a mill who would do it for you but its likely you'd need to order a huge amount

Dear Echidna,
Would a saw mill have something like a 4 header or cnc router to cut quantities of dowel?
Paloma

Oh yeah, try 10 headers at $1,000,000 for the moulder alone, this is precisely why you may find it difficult to get it done by a larger spotted gum concern, these machines need to be set up for long production runs to be economical. Personally I'd get a try local joinery shops, failing that one of the cheaper benchtop moulders from the usual suspects.

Paloma
just how many metres of spotted gum dowel do you need?


ian

Lee Valley have a dowel making jig, it's on my list of "tools I'd like to have (but don't have an immediate use for)"

Mick

G'day.
A few years ago, we got a mob in Lismore to machine 50mm Spotted Gum and 50mm Grey Ironbark round section for a handrail job to match the flooring we supplied.
If I can find the name of the place, I'll PM you.

Originally Posted by journeyman Mick

Lee Valley have a dowel making jig, it's on my list of "tools I'd like to have (but don't have an immediate use for)"

Mick

I have a Lie Nielsen dowel maker like this
ans it's very handy fo making small-ish lengths - mine's the metric equivalent.

we have made dowel in the past but due to the low cost per meter of material the charge is by hourly rate, works out over 125 bucks an hour plus cutters if a special size.
try a custom stair place,