How Do You Make Dowels With A Router?
When building furniture, it can often be difficult to find dowel rod of the right size and diameter for the application, especially when working with exotic materials. Most commercially available dowels are made of pine, spruce and other soft woods. Although exotic hardwood dowels can be purchased from some suppliers, they are very expensive and hard to come by in bulk. If you have access to a router and router table, however, you can make your own dowels out of virtually any type of lumber. Select a bull nose router bit that has the same diameter along its cutting edge as the dowel rod you wish to make (a bit with a 1-inch diameter cutting length will make a 1-inch diameter dowel rod). Set the bull nose bit of your choice in the router chuck and then connect the router to the bottom of your router table. Adjust the height of the bit so that the bottom edge of the cutting surface is flush with the table. Adjust the fence on your router table so that it is flush with the very edge of th
