Thread: New dowel plate

Congratulations Denim,
That is impressive. Necessity really is the mother of all invention. Thanks for the walk through. Always good to see them.
Alastair

Well done Denim,
I need to make one of those as well. Also for draw boring.
I'll see what steel i can find at work tomorrow.

The LN dowel plate holes have a taper. This acts like a cutter when you hammer the pegs through. That said, your results could be improved by working your way through the hole sizes, rather than wacking one out in the final size too soon.

Edit: were you using riven, straight-grained timber?

Regards from Perth

Derek

I made a tapered hole plate on a piece of 50 x50 steel angle that works very well but a lot of the dowel I make is from Ebony and other hard or brittle timber that often just shatters when you hit it with a hammer. I now use a LV dowel cutter which works realy well and a reasonable price. Veritas® Dowel and Tenon Cutters - Lee Valley Tools

PS, when using your dowel plate, make sure you are not going against your grain direction and trim the blank down to as close as you can
to the size you want. Then it only gets a trim and a size correction as it goes through the plate.

Untill I got the LV unit I was turning them up on the lathe.

Originally Posted by derekcohen

The LN dowel plate holes have a taper. This acts like a cutter when you hammer the pegs through.

I doubt if the holes in the LN plates are tapered right up to the face to form angled cutting edges. I would guess the holes are relieved to prevent the dowels from binding as they are hammered through.

I made a dowel plate about thirty years ago and I used a taper reamer to relieve the backs of the holes, but I left the top, say, 1/16" to 1/8" parallel so I could hone the face from time to time in order to 'sharpen' the peripheries of the holes without enlarging them. If the holes were tapered right to the top face of the plate, then with successive honing, the holes would become larger in diameter – which may or may not be important, depending on what you require the dowels for.

Thanks for the feedback guys.

Originally Posted by derekcohen

The LN dowel plate holes have a taper. This acts like a cutter when you hammer the pegs through. That said, your results could be improved by working your way through the hole sizes, rather than wacking one out in the final size too soon.

Edit: were you using riven, straight-grained timber?

I used partially riven timber as I grabbed the straightest grained off cut I could find and split it with a hatchet. It did take a bit more effort than I expected to hit it through. The taper would certainly make it easier. I've researched the matter to see what alternatives I have to tapering and I've found one method which involves running a small burr up the edges with a burnisher.

Will give that a try and report back with the results.


Thanks again,

Denim.

Like WW said I only tapered up about 2/3 of the way. The top 1/3 say also keeps its alignment. I only use the plate or the dowel cuter for decorative dowels and plugs. Although the Lyutens bench I did had about 3m of dowels and plugs out of Ironbark..

From the LN website:

Holes machined with 6-degree clearance taper on underside, holes are straight for the first .025" (6.35mm); so this tool can be sharpened many times without increasing the size - but at 60 Rockwell it probably won't ever need sharpening.

So, clearance tapered, not to sharpen the edge.

CW wrote:

I only use the plate or the dowel cuter for decorative dowels and plugs.

I use the plate to make custom plugs and dowels for drawboring.

Regards from Perth

Derek

Yes and drawbore dowels and any dowels that need to be longer or harder than the standard shop bought beech (or similar) dowels.

I've never used dowels for making permanent, glued joints, only for locating elements that are required to be free moving such as the locating pegs in the edges of dining table leaves and also for stops such as on lopers and draw-leaf table bearers etc.

I make pegs for drawboring from square (riven) stock of the same nominal size as the holes (well, slightly larger) and then pare the tapers on a miniature bench hook. It seems counterintuitive to me to take a square-ish piece of wood, make it cylindrical and then pare facets along its length again!

Good point WW, did you get that bench hook from the leprechauns?

Originally Posted by Claw Hama

Good point WW, did you get that bench hook from the leprechauns?

Yes, a rather oversized leprechaun knocked it together for me one day.

Originally Posted by Denim

It did take a bit more effort than I expected to hit it through. The taper would certainly make it easier.

Before forcing lengths of wood through the dowel plate, try shaving them down to almost the finished size and then hammer/pull them through the plate to perfect the shape. You'll experience much smoother dowels this way as there's very little splitting and tear-out involved.

Hi Derek,
OK, so I will be the Bunny & ask the Question.
What is a Draw Bore, Drawbore,?