Veritas Dowel and Tennon Cutters
I purchased these recently as my hardware suppliers are very limited and the dowel I can get locally is ordinary at best.
They weren't very expensive, $20 each plus a further $9 for the square drive set. I got the 1/2" and 3/8" sizes
The usual excellent service from Lee Valley. I had them in hand within four days from order. I was actually ordering some other bits and pieces and these were really to pad out the postage cost.
They work like a big pencil sharpener.
Square stock, slightly over finished size, is fed into the cutter via a power drill, and a nicely formed dowel comes out the other end. Simple and straight forward.
I cut some offcuts of random hardwood down to size on the table saw and fed them through using a power drill. A battery drill worked just as good but I was playing around for a while so stuck to the power drill rather than flatten the battery. I varied the speed and feed rate but it didn't seem to make much difference. The resultant dowel was well formed with a smooth surface. I left the dowel in the drill and ran a bit of 320 grit sandpaper over the dowel to leave it silky smooth.
You can see on the digital vernier that the finished size is spot on. The blade can be adjusted to produce a slightly under or oversized dowel.
The 3/8" cutter came in very handy a few days later when I needed, on short notice, some fairy wand shafts for MiniArcher's birthday party. It took me about 10 mins to turn out 12x 250mm long pine dowels...I mean wands.
The quality is excellent. They are very solid and heavy with a thick blade. They will outlast me. The blade could be given a hone for an even finer finish but I don't feel it's necessary. I'll worry about that if I actually manage to dull the blade.
I feel these simple little contraptions will pay for themselves many times over.
Five thumbs up :thyel::thyel::thyel::thyel::thyel:
