Avoiding flex when turning dowels

steady rest, sharp skew chisel

Andy in Raleigh

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Re: Avoiding flex when turning dowels

John Lucas

>I find it difficult to turn dowels of any length really accurately. You get chatter and maintaining +/- 1/64 is difficult and time consuming.

I use my router. I made a jig that fits on my router table. It has a large hole on one side and a hole on the other side is the finished diameter. I cut a square piece on the table saw that just barely fits the large hole. I insert this into the big hole and chuck the other end in my electric drill. You may have to turn a tenon or insert a dowel that will fit your drill.

Now I feed this through the large hole and adjust the router bit height until it cuts the dowel to the diameter of the exit hole. It makes really perfect dowels.

I used to insert dowels into my turned clock faces and the dowels were never round and this shows when you put them in a perfectly round hole.

Re: Avoiding flex when turning dowels

William R. Duffield, on the Cohansey

>Go look at this thread from a couple of days ago for some good info on technique and equipment and some leads to further info:

Need a steady center