Dowel Maker that you can make!

[Greebe]

I found this web page showing a simple dowel maker made from a piece of scrap steel.  Looks to be pretty simple to make and effective.  Seems like it would work well for making arrows.  You could have several sizes to step down from you rough blank to your finished shaft diameter.  Thought I would pass it along to you guys.

http://www.ibuildit.ca/Workshop%20Projects/Jigs/dowel-maker-1.html

And a video of it in action.

http://youtu.be/dR9-gdNdZAA?t=2m32s

Greebe

[Joec123able]

If I had a drill press and a hand drill I'd do this for sure

[bubby]

you can also make one with a pc of hardwood and a hacksaw blade

[mikekeswick]

The problem with his idea is that you are limited in the hardness of steel you can use, because you have to drill it...... so it will blunten quickly. It's also a good idea to make some guides for the shaft once it exits the cutter.

[Greebe]

You could always use a high carbon steel and heat treat it.  1045, 1080, 1095, and O-1 are all simple oil hardening steels that come in a variety of flat stock shapes.  A guide at the back would probably help keep things lined up and keep the diameter of the dowel more consistent. 

The other problem that I can see with this design is that you have to get the rough blank very close the the final diameter.  It seems like it took him a lot of work reducing one blank before he ran it through the dowel maker. I would like to be able to run a larger piece straight off of the table saw into a dowel maker.  I was kind of thinking if you stacked a few of these then you could do this. Then you could run a larger piece of stock through and it would reduce it all in one shot.

How is the hacksaw and wood block dowel maker made?  I would be curious to see one.

Thanks
Dave

[Thesquirrelslinger]

you can also heat treat mild steel up to almost 45 RC according to blacksmithing forums with super quench.

[bow101]

I found this web page showing a simple dowel maker made from a piece of scrap steel.  Looks to be pretty simple to make and effective.  Seems like it would work well for making arrows.  You could have several sizes to step down from you rough blank to your finished shaft diameter.  Thought I would pass it along to you guys.

http://www.ibuildit.ca/Workshop%20Projects/Jigs/dowel-maker-1.html

And a video of it in action.

http://youtu.be/dR9-gdNdZAA?t=2m32s

Greebe

It looks like a good one.  I made mine from a piece of flat bar 1/4"  just have to taper the holes, it's a little tricky. I ended up making 3 holes large enough to accept 13/32, next hole down to 3/8, and the final one a hair over 11/32 that allows to finish sand to final size.

[Jim Davis]

If nothing else, may I suggest chucking a bolt in the drill, putting a 1/2" drive socket on the bolt, and putting the square blank in the Square drive hole of the socket. Saves working every square stick down to fit in the drill chuck.

Better yet, a router setup.

[mikekeswick]

I also use a router set up but it's different to yours. My shafts come out flawless and I have added a piece of steel with a hole a fraction smaller than 11/32 so that the shafts also get the surfaces mildly burnished. This is how comercial dowel makers work.
Yes I know about heat treating steel - i've spent a few years doing that sort of thing and my best friend is a custom knife maker. For sure you could make this then heat treat it. Squirrel a rockwell rating of 45 isn't that hard when it comes to cutting tools. Experience would have told you that.
Personally I think the only accurate, fast and not a complete pain in the *&^%££ is to use a router set-up. I've must have made thousands of shafts over the years and have been right round the houses trying ALL the methods!
The basic rules of making your own dowel shafts are
1 - buy perfect stock (really perfect).
2 - cut your stock flawlessly straight
3 - if you want a  dozen matched shafts cut at least 100 blanks.
4 - perfect your chosen reduction method!

[Jim Davis]

I find that blanks cut from the same board produce shafts of very closely matched spine.

My setup also burnishes the shafts. I also have different bushings to produce shaft sizes from 1/4" to 23/64" and could make them for any other size.

Here's where I got the idea many years ago:

[Thesquirrelslinger]

I know, but 45 RC is much better than 20.
i have a knife made from mild steel that was tempered to almost 50 RC. it doesn't hold an edge forever, but it is easy to sharpen and the blade probably will never break.
usually 60 RC + is for cutting tools, right?

[Badger]

  The other day I ordered a set of cobalt drill bits in 1/64th increments. I am going to try the method where you just push the square stock through a hole that trims off a tiny amount and then go to the next hole and trim a tiny bit more. I am doing this mainly because I am going to try it on tapered arrows using a tep method. I believe I was the inventer of the router method. I published photos of it online many years ago and within a couple of years I started to see it show up. I still use it for runs where I am making a lot of shafts but thought I would try the simple hole method for running just a couple of each size.

[Jim Davis]

Well, Badger, I don't think you invented the router setup. I was using it years ago too, but I got it from this article, which was written more than a decade ago and mentions the setup was in a magazine 30 years before that. That would  put  it back about 1970.

http://www.highlandwoodworking.com/dowelmakingjig.aspx

Just like to put credit where credit is due.

Jim

[Badger]

  I wasn't sure, but the one I posted on line was almost identical to the one you posted a pic of. I had never seen one before that. Mine was much l;ater about 1989 or 90 . I think I posted here or leatherwall with a pretty girl operating it. Shortly after that I started seeing them show up.

[Jim Davis]

"Mine was much l;ater about 1989 or 90 ."

It's getting hard to remember at our ages, isn't it. Neither the Leatherwall nor the PA site was in operation at that time. Leatherwall showed up about 1996 or '97. Not sure about the PA site, but later than '90.