Making a dowel plate
Stephen in Ottawa
>I want to make a dowel plate to make 3/8" pegs for drawboring. How do I go about making one? Do the holes have to be tapered to be effective? Any insight would be helpful.
- Stephen
Making a dowel plate
Posts
Re: Making a dowel plate
#2Re: Making a dowel plate
Dean J in MN
>I went real hi-tech on my dowel plate... Drove to local "Fleet-Farm" and grabbed a 3/16-inch (or was it 1/4??) thick hunk of steel. I think it was to repair a plow, I'm not sure. Drilled a few holes of various needed sizes. Flipped the plate over, ran a countersink to make the underside beveled a bit. Rived some wood, and drove the pieces through with a mallet. Loads of fun actually!
-Dean
Re: Making a dowel plate
#3Re: Making a dowel plate
mikew
>Hi Stephen,
It is nice to slightly taper the exit side to all but the last 1/8" or so for clearance. It takes a bery acut tapered reamer to do it "right." But I have made quick ones by filing the taper using a round file and not messed it up before.
When filing, just make sure you do not scrape the side of the hole you will be feeding the stock into. And you don't have to file the entire way to the top. I shot for about half way or a little more.
I also used gun bluing in the hole so I cold see where I was hitting with the file and made sure up near the in-side I didn't hit it.
Take care, Mike
Re: Making a dowel plate
#4Re: Making a dowel plate
Ed Mulligan, Cape Cod
>A tapered hole works better (I just got the LN dowel plate, which has tapered holes) but a straight-sided hole works well. Try one before you go to the trouble of tapering. It might be all you need.
Ed
Re: Making a dowel plate
#5Everything everybody's said...
Scott Burr in Ben Lomond, CA
>You should get it hardned. Then lap/flatten the face of it Where you start the dowel process) and it will last you a lifetime.
Re: Making a dowel plate
#6Re: Making a dowel plate
paul womack
>A working dowel plate is just mild steel, drilled.
An "ultimate" dowelplate has tapered holes, and is in hardened steel.
Where you need to be will determine which end of the spectrum is "good enough".
Now - thickness. Clearly if the plate is too thin, it provides no directional control over the dowel going through. Equally, if it's too thick, the dowel will endure excess friction, and is harder to remove from the plate.
There must be an "optimum" range of thicknesses. From observation, the vintage ones I've seen are 3/8 or a shade less.
BugBear