A suggestion that may improve the quality of the dowel. Instead of taking the blank square stock directly to the size dowel needed, I am wondering if the stock where first "dowelled" through a larger size aperture and then incrementally step that dowel down through successively smaller sizes to the desired final size if the quality would not be improved? If you find it in you it would be interesting to see what you arrive at.

One thing I did like about using a steel plate however, besides tolerating heat, was that it burnished the wood. It may be smart not to cut accurately, but to exit-hole accurately by burnishing, or "pressing" it. The high speed and tension are there anyway, and sandpaper clogs and leaves fur fibers.

Hello! I bought the same one. Had the same problem till I ran the drill the other way. Try running the drill in reverse. It works! Good Luck!

@acanadianwoodworker

2 ай бұрын

Haha thats so wild! I had half an idea to try reversing but never ended up doing it. I just tried with softwood - there's still tear-out but it was definitely a gentler cut. A little more accurate to its dimension too. I tried with poplar right afterwards but couldn't get it to cut in reverse. Then I tried forward and got a semi-decent cut, probably because the reverse action of the previous dowel sharpened the blade a little. Moral of the story - always try everything!

I purchased this item and it produced a very clean and smooth dowel. Maybe it has to do with the type or state of wood you used.

The blade is at a scraping position of the red and black jig. It should be positioned at a shearing position for it to work better, it would shear the fibers off instead of “chopping” off the fibers.

I made and used several, a key is the longer the blank, the more it whips out of line. So it needs a pre-feed, however the point is not to have the blanks have to be perfect before the dowel is perfect. Obviously it is a mini-lathe, so all lathe practices would be followed even if too small to see: cutting point vs centerline, sheer angle, depth of cut, sharpness, cutter angle (entry and relief sides), heat. Here's a different question: what is the best or only workable solution on the market now? Can we convert this excellent well-made block to use them?

You are taking off too much material in one pass.

Got one and had the same result and comparing it to the larger dowel maker I have it's clear the main problem is the angle of attack of the blade. The more sophisticated dowel makers have the blade set to take a shearing cut as the wood rotates into the blade, slicing away the long grain fibres. In this design the blade is set at 90 degrees to the surface of the wood so as it rotates into it this just rips out the fibres and gives the predictable ragged finish. If the blade were set at an angle in the central element that might help. It also might help if the blade was tapered in its length so the amount of material taken off at the start was less and it only cut down to the required diameter as it reaches the exit side of the jig.

I can't tell from the close up views, but it seems the angle of the blade seems wrong. I would think you would want to mimic the blade angle of whittling. When you first showed it, I imagined the dowel maker was going to be powered by a electric drill, such as 1/4" bit drive. I imagined some sort of simple gears that would change the x rotation torque into a z-axis rotation. The simple machine would grip, pull, and rotate the wood while the blade would be cutting mostly down it's length towards the leading edge, also pulling the wood in. I could also imagine another way to do this like an old school pencil sharpener, but without the angled worm blades. Interested to see what you have built.

You can try to put a drill bit into it to check good placement of the cutter. On mine it was way too close from the axis (about 0,6mm). Indeed, in this case the whole stability is compromise as the dowel is not properly guided which amllify the problem...

Take a 2 inch piece of 1/4 srlteel flatbar 10 onches long drill a 1/4 inch hole in it if tgats the diameter of dowel you want. Take a dremmel tool with a small thin cut off wheel and make multiple cuts around the 1/4 in hole, both sides. Taper your 5/16 inch square cut piece of wood on both ends. One end goes into your drill the other into the flatbar. Makes killer dowels only takes 10 min top to make and it practically free. Keep it simple n cheap

Did it fail though? It sounds like it might be designed for rough dowels with room for sanding. Any case, you got my sub for part 2.

@acanadianwoodworker

19 күн бұрын

It works pretty good for just filler or joinery dowels. Like, as an example, the other day we were assembling an Ikea cabinet and needed an extra 8mm dowel, so I just whipped this unit out and made one quickly. Didn't fit very tightly but was good enough for alignment, and was very handy because it did it quickly.

I need one that can do 2" to 2.5"

Could you be pushing it through too fast? If you push a metal lathe/mill too fast, it will create chatter with softer materials (you just break equipment with harder materials). I can't help but wonder if the final product would be much smoother if you pushed it through at a much slower rate and maybe had a faster drill. Wood is different, but I think the physics are similar in this regard.

@acanadianwoodworker

3 ай бұрын

Ive tried all kinds of things with it, slow feeds, fast feeds, slow drill, fast drill, sneaking up on sizes etc. There's always some kind of deep tear out in the wood fibres. It would be interesting to back trace through all the re-sellers to the original designers and see what results they got with it.

"This doesn't work, but I will make something that does, and you can buy it from me 😃"

Others have correctly mentioned cutting angle for the blade - a shearing cut gets you a smooth surface. However it also needs a lot more RPM. I regularly turn 5-6mm lace bobbins at 4000 RPM. There’s not a drill on the planet that will get anywhere near that speed. The key here is surface speed (feet per second). The smaller the diameter the faster it needs to spin to get past tearing out and into shearing.

@acanadianwoodworker

2 ай бұрын

Thats really interesting, you'd have to have something pretty powerful to reach those RPMs I assume!

@TimJohnsonBizNet3

2 ай бұрын

@@acanadianwoodworkersorry if I wasn’t clear. My lathe is geared to run at 4000 RPM

@TimJohnsonBizNet3

2 ай бұрын

@@acanadianwoodworkeryour router-based jig solves the speed problem because that blade runs at over 10 grand, thus the smoother result

If only there was something that specialized in making round things of all sorts.

@acanadianwoodworker

3 ай бұрын

I'm from an alternate universe where the lathe was never invented :)

Got those serial killer vibes

I an currently getting into building my own arrows for archery and upon doing research I came upon this video. I am searching for the best "dowel maker" for the money.( Buget is pretty tight.) While i can't justify $450-$10000, i would definitely break my own arm reaching for my wallet to drop $100 or so on this. I will be keeping my eye out for this even of i have to put a slight pause on my endeavors. I pray this does in fact hit the market soon.

Same experience as yours with this jig. Very disappointing. It's a little better if you first bring your initial part closer to a cylinder. If you found a way to improve it I'm interested.

As to the question of how much I would pay, with a little fine tuning I would gladly pay between $100-$125

I think my lathe is much better😊

This product surface not good