Dowel making with JIGSAW blades! 

The best instructional videos leave in the sander burns, missed drills, shin kicks, splinters, thumb smashes, etc. because this is real woodworking! Great tool!

I followed the directions and it worked like a charm. I had tried other techniques that had failed.

This is a genuinely useful and easily portable jig, which is important to me since I often need an odd dowel for a job away from my workshop, on another note when you injured yourself, I was afraid this video might be like Kenny Everett’s DIY expert sketch where he injured himself multiple times through the course of his projects, especially when you were about to apply the finish with the blades already in the wood!😂, well done Dean, and good you included the further clarification, best wishes Julie

I am actually impressed. Thank you.

Cheers, Dean. This is a blast from the past. Glad I found it. Good stuff.👍

Best dowel maker I've seen yet, bravo my friend 🤠🙏👍

I like it......excellent. No need to store shop, great use of hardwood bits and store bought dowels have been increasingly hard to locate. Cheers!!

Good and simple one but a robust. Thanks for your ideas.

if you put in your blades before you drill the holes, then slide the drill bit down between till the drill bit is tight and then drill your hole. perfect size easy.

This is the first dowel maker I really like thank you well presented 👍💯

Really cool idea. Thanks for sharing!

Very nice simple design, thanks Dean

Thank you sir amazing and very easy stay blessed

Another great vid from Dean's world - simple, functional and a really useful little widget made for not much money. Like it - I'll be making one of these for meself, hopefully without sanding half my finger off 😉

I enjoyed your video and going to give it a go. ❤

Sorry ya got bit by that sander!! Man, I'm so happy bout this video.. Was thinking about using this method, & your positive tutorial sold me. Thanks!!

Good that’s really the most easy way thanks 🙏

😆😄 Glad you found your key! Thanks for this video.

Glad you found that key. It's always in the last place you look! 😜 Thanks for the vid!

Just wanted to say thank you for your funny and great videos you do cheers steve

What a great idea!

Great video. I made this jig today and it works, but I'm scorching the dowel as it passes through and it's making a lot of smoke. I tried making the hole a couple of mm bigger than the dowel I need thinking there's too much friction between the dowel and the jig but it didn't help.

That's an awesome idea!

Nice work Dean 👍👍

I like the design! Thanks for making this video ❤❤

Seems that it should emerge from the jig just a pinch larger. Some sanding will remove material. So is that why you mentioned outside the line?

Superb idea. Might pinch that.🙂

How accurate were the dowels to the mm?

Great job thanks for sharing

Love it That’s awesome

Thanks Dean - something I will make and use! Simple design. Well presented. Just subscribed.

Very handy, and what a good job you sanded your finger, you can now open the wood store cabinet 😂, always a silver lining 😂.

The one that I use most of the time is a thick body stainless steel pipe with the inner diameter of my requirement (I use 6mm, 8mm and 10mm dowels most of the time). I cut a stainless steel pipe about 50mm in length, I grind one end of the pipe into teeth similar to a hole saw but with longer teeth profile about 10mm (steep angle), after that I bend the teeth (starting from half the height of the teeth) outward so that it can accommodate a square wooden rod (without extra dressings/shaving of the four edges). Then I take a square wood of 50mm×50mm×100mm drill a hole the size of the outer diameter of the stainless steel pipe and then use a big countersink drill-bit on the hole so that it can accommodate some of the outward bend teeth. I then apply glue on the outer surface of the finished stainless steel pipe and drove it into the drilled hole of the 50mm×50mm×100mm wood. Let the glue dry then clamp the wood on a surface and the dowel jig is ready. ( I use stainless steel pipes because they have high temper and takes a long time to go blunt, before bending the teeth outwards I burn the teeth with with a jet torch to soften them, making the bending process easier using a pointed nose pliers and avoiding the risk of breaking them, I re-temper them when I get the desired teeth profile .) I never sand the dowels I make, a dowel with rough surface absorbs more glue and locks into the material its holding more securely like a serrated spike, making it almost impossible for the fixture to come apart. PS: I hope one day you'll make what I just explained and post it here. Enjoyed the whole video and Thank You for sharing your ideas. . . India. .

Nice! I think leaving the dowels rough might improve the glue strength.

Nice little project Dean! I have a metal dowel plate, always seem to break the rods when I hammer them through, but that will probably be user error!

So why do some sanding discs have holes stamped in but you've chosen some with no holes? What do you think?. is it for ventilation when you have a matching holes in the sanders pad

Bit more sophisticated than my old lawnmower blade with holes drilled through it🙃

I use these jigs quite a bit and find it best not to spin the dowel back out once it's cut because it can tear the dowel up especially in softwood. Just unchuck it and cut that bit off 👍

I've been looking for a way to make dowels for awhile and I'm going with your method. Also, I like your attitude and personality so much I had to subscribe. 2 thumbs up mate.

good video. Why not put the blades in first then brad point drill the hole where it fits snugly against the hollow ground blades?

very smart

Don't you need to have the blade going in opposite directions to follow the spin direction?

Cool vid. :)

Bit of a drastic way to manicure your nails Dean! Just use an emery board!

What is the brand of your sander? mirka?

At 5:30, Why not draw the straight line, then a line which is perpendicular to the diameter of the larger hole, and a smaller line for the small hole. Then draw the perfect size for the middle hole. Cheers Dean.

yes, 1 it's a little rough, but simple!

Any reason why we're not allowed to save your video to a playlist?

You’re the vaping biker ! Blimey soon as I heard you’re voice

Ditto everyone below!

Oh no! You got a workshop war wound - ouch.

You Need To Drill The Holes Closer To The Edge & cut A Gap & use A C Clamp To Hold A Chizzle On Top Then Put The Peice Of Wood inside Of A Socket The Same Size Of The Square Rod Thenattach The Socket Onto A Nutdriving Shaft Then Put The Nutdriving Shaft Into The Drill & Spin The Square Rod Inside The Hole Where The Chizzle I Located Then Start Up The Drill.

🫡

Nice work. Any suggestions for making a tapered dowel? I messed up one of my violin peg holes and have some maple leftover from an old project that I plan to use. I could probably just make a dowel like you have shown but the mechanics in which a violin is tuned makes me think that a tapered dowel is the way to go. I have a violin peg reamer so not a shaper. Thanks Brian