Hi all,

As discussed in the invisible hinge jig post, here is the design I have for the dowel making jig to accompany it.

dowel jig 1.jpg

After watching many youtube videos and many sleepless nights I have come up with the design above. It has 3 bushings that should be made of steel, aluminium or something else that is heat resistant. I am trying PTFE and will see how that goes. The reason being is that most other jigs encountered burning and burnishing which is not desirable. I am looking for some other locally sourced material that is suitable for easy drilling by woodworkers while also being heat resistant for those who want to make it entirely themselves.

I have sized the holes so that a square blank of a round number can fit in the opening side. The two separate bushings at the front provide registration to ensure parallelism. This seemed to be a major drawback in other designs. The double bushing also allows for accurate initial hand feeding of the square stock into the router bit which is necessary in order to mount the blank in a drill chuck. The rear bushing is slightly oversized to allow for sizing down via sanding.

The top has runners 81mm apart which is the standard Makita laminate router base size but can be adjusted to any size base. The router can then slide to and fro to each dowel size and then be adjusted to dial in the precise size required. I am working on a cam dial which will let you dial in the exact size which is repeatable from one session to another. I am also working on a clamping system. Thinking thinking.

The bottom is extra wide (my wife....) to allow for clamping to a bench.

I will be dusting off my CNC to make some test kits. Plans to make yourself will be free. However there are some funky sized holes that are required for the various stock types. I went with keeping the square blanks 14mm, 11mm and 8mm to minimise error however perhaps I can make a plan that has standard sized holes but fractional blanks (ie, 13.3mm etc) for the self made jigs.

Im hoping to make kits available to purchase to compliment the invisible hinge kits.

I will keep you all updated.