-- making dowels for fine joinery
A few years ago I'd hit my limit with store bought dowels. You see, you don't realize how bad they are since the manufacturers make them with no consideration of grain direction until they fail. And that always happens in the middle of a glue up at a point of no return. So I learned to make my own. Since most of the ones I use are 1/2 to 1/4 inch using a dowel plate is perfect. So I bought one from Lie-Nielsen and built a box to hold it that would produce just the right length dowels. Here's how I use it.