Tool Test: Dowel Maker

Looking for quality and efficiency

[For those of you only here for the basketball ref snippets, skip ahead to the bottom….]

I don’t make many straight dowels. My ladderbacks don’t use straight, round parts. Neither do any Windsors I’ve previously made. Those parts, even the spindles, are usually tapered on one or both ends. But stick chairs use long, straight sticks. A recent chair build had straight 5/8” sticks above the arm bow. I shaved those, fitting them into a test hole, and the four sticks took about an hour. I came in that evening and looked at dowel cutters online. A

Specifically, I looked at the Ray Isles Rounding Planes. They come recommended, but I’m not yet willing to go for the set (I’ll add it to my “someday” tool list, alongside the Caleb James shave).

Then the internet then did what the internet does. I have received a steady stream of dowel making videos and advertisements ever since. Big Dowel was target marketing me. And it worked.

I essentially purchased a dowel plate with a carbide cutter. Spin a stick through it and it shaves away everything that isn’t the dowel. The cutter rotates to the different dimensioned holes from a center screw, with a secondary screw locking it in place. There are no fine adjustments for the cutter. It comes with three additional screws to hold it upright during use, and a couple of Allen keys. The tool, made by Ganwei, is 26$ on Amazon (I suggest watching the video…the tool does not come with instructions).

Note: I am not sponsored by either Ganwei or Amazon.

If it works, it will be my silver bullet for dowel making. What follows are my initial thoughts regarding this tool: