How do I use dowels?

[Ronak Shah]

I haven't got a good tenoning jig built yet, so my first project is using dowels at the 90 degree joints. Just tonight I put my first square subassembly together made out of 4 strips of wood. The only problem is that the four pieces aren't perfectly co-planar.

I think it must be due to the fact that I can't use a drill press on all the holes. The ones at the butt end of a piece of wood aren't feasible on my drill press - I just don't have the vertical space on the tool. Instead, I drilled a hole into a scrap 1" thick piece of wood and used that as a guide to free-hand drill a hole into the butt end.

While the issues aren't that important on my first project, my next is a crib, and I'd like that to look really nice. So first, a vague question: given that I have a BT3100, drill press, cordless drill, jigsaw & sander, how can I best ensure 90 degree joints on long pieces of wood? Maybe dowels are just a bad idea.

A more specific question - if I were to use dowels, are there any tricks & tips I might try? Thanks!

Ronak

[monte]

I suggest using a dowel jig. This will help to keep things coplaner.

[drumpriest]

Ronak, if you check out this thread....

http://www.bt3central.com/forum/topi...TOPIC_ID=21837

about 1/2 way down you will see the variety of doweling jigs that I made easily to make this project work. As you have a drill press, then you can easily construct a jig like these.

Just take a 1" long piece of hardwood, as wide as the material that you are joining, layout holes, drill those holes on your drill press, and glue a 1/4" piece of plywood to the back to allow you to clamp the jig into place. Now, there is an A side and a B side, so when you drill your holes for your dowels, drill A on one piece, and B on the other piece. This will ensure that the dowels will line up and keep the joint coplaner.

Very simple once you've made the jig. Note though, don't use ply for the jig body, it won't stand up to much use.

Hope this helps.

[Pappy]

This is an example of the dowelling jikgs available.

http://www.woodcraft.com/family.aspx?familyid=782

They can be bought cheaper than this. Just make sure the body/guide portion is made of steel or uses steel inserts. Some of them are aluminum and won't hold up.

[Ronak Shah]

Thanks for all the responses. I'm going to either pick up one of the jigs from Rockler or build my own one.

The concern I have with the latter is that after drilling a few holes, there'll be so much play in the wooden drill guide that I won't vertical any more. We'll see how it goes!

Thanks!

[drumpriest]

Ronak, as to your worry about milling out the wooden jig, you might. That's why you need to use a good hardwood. I did 32 dowels with that jig in the post, and it's still fine, but your milage may vary.

good luck.

[LCHIEN]

quote:Originally posted by Ronak Shah

Thanks for all the responses. I'm going to either pick up one of the jigs from Rockler or build my own one.

The concern I have with the latter is that after drilling a few holes, there'll be so much play in the wooden drill guide that I won't vertical any more. We'll see how it goes!

Thanks!

I wouldn't recommend wood guides for more than a couple of holes in something as critical as a dowel jig.
Perhaps you could buy a steel sleeve of some sort in the hardware dept that you could use as a guide by embedding it in the jig.

[drumpriest]

Ah Loring, David Marks and I disagree. Wood is just fine for a doweling jig, you just have to realize that they won't last forever. I made mine to the specific sizes of the projects, and they certainly saved time, even over a regular doweling jig.

[onedash]

I was just wondering if dowels are better than biscuits or pocket hole screws for certain things?? Ive never used dowels for anything.
I did see Tom Silva once used a Jig to drill two holes and it looked almost esxactly like a biscuit joiner but it drilled two holes instead of a slot. kinda cool looking.

[drumpriest]

I like to use dowels in face frames, but I don't have a pocket hole jig. I would imagine that I'd use that if I had one. Really, it's about ease of the setup.

When joining at 90 degrees, end grain to long grain, you have several options. I like biscuits a lot, and would use them if they weren't too big for a face frame application. Pocket screws are quick to use, you are just screwing together 2 pieces and relying on glue to help hold the joint tight. Dowels have good glue surface, and you can setup as many as you need for your face frame, depending upon width. Mortise and tenon is the best option for strength, but overkill for this application in my opinion. A lot of work for that a face frame really is.

I use dowels because they don't require any special equipment, and if you make a simple jig, they are almost as easy to install as pocket screws. And they are wood, won't oxidize, etc....

[germdoc]

IMO dowels are what man used before God gave him the biscuit joiner. Seriously, I use biscuits for 50% of face-frame-type applications and use pocket screws 30% of the time, which leaves 20% for dowels?

They do have their place, especially for butt-jointing narrow pieces. They line up pieces much better than any other technique, which can actually be a problem if you don't drill them accurately. And don't underestimate how tricky it can be to line them up. In terms of degree of brainlessness I would list pocket holes > BJ's > dowel joints > M&T joints. If you want to go that route, I will put in a plug for a cheap dowel guide, like the kind sold cheaply by Wolfcraft and more expensively in various catalogues.

[LCHIEN]

quote:Originally posted by germdoc

IMO dowels are what man used before God gave him the biscuit joiner. Seriously, I use biscuits for 50% of face-frame-type applications and use pocket screws 30% of the time, which leaves 20% for dowels?

They do have their place, especially for butt-jointing narrow pieces. They line up pieces much better than any other technique, which can actually be a problem if you don't drill them accurately. And don't underestimate how tricky it can be to line them up. In terms of degree of brainlessness I would list pocket holes > BJ's > dowel joints > M&T joints. If you want to go that route, I will put in a plug for a cheap dowel guide, like the kind sold cheaply by Wolfcraft and more expensively in various catalogues.

I'll agree with Germdoc - dowels require perfection in at least two dimensions which require no-walking, no-grain-following drilling.

The Biscuits require perfection in only one dimension and that is easily achieved with a halfway decent BJ fence and depth mechanism.

I sometimes use dowels when I need perfect lineup in two dimensions; for edge joining panels - I use biscuits.

[drumpriest]

I agree with both germdoc and loring, if you can use biscuits for a joint, it's certainly the easiest/fastest. Unless you are using 2 1/2" face frames though, you arn't gonna use biscuits. So the argument in that particular joint is between dowels, pocket screws, and mortise and tenon. Of those 3, dowels don't require the pocket jig, a nd are easier than M&T.

If you do have the pocket jig, it's probably about as easy as dowels, I wouldn't exactly know, as I don't have one.

[JimD]

I have a dowel jig, a dedicated mortiser, a pocket screw jig, and a biscuit joiner. I use the dowel jig the least. Dowel joints have the least strength because you get the most strength from long grain to long grain joints and you do not get much surface area with this grain orientation with a round dowel in a round hole. If the piece is wide enough, biscuits are a good way to go because they are fast and strong and do not show. If you can hide the pocket screws, they are also very fast and are stronger than most people think, certainly stronger than dowels. Mortise and Tenon joints are the strongest when well made but take the longest. For a crib, I would think about going with mortise and tenons but make a jig for a plunge router to cut the mortises - it really speeds things up. I made 4 chairs with 22 mortise and tenon joints each this way and it wasn't much more time investment than biscuits or pocket screws. If you do not have any of the other tools, dowels are not a bad choice as long as there is very little stress on the joint. I would even think hard about using plugged screws before using dowels (i.e. screw the parts together but recess the screw head and hide it with a plug of the same material or something you like the contrast with). I am not fond of dowels, in case you can't tell, but I also used them more when I had less options.

Jim

[Ronak Shah]

Wow, thanks again for the responses. I'm in the process of shopping for a router & table, and may go the M&T route. Still, the input on pocket jigs & proper doweling technique is really helpful. Thanks!