Suresh's

Dowelling Jig

Here is Suresh looking serious

Here us Suresh with a smile

Hello Suresh!

As soon as I got home, I got my old dowelling jig out. When I chose yours, the idea was that it would be the same as this one.

Is that the same as yours?

I inherited mine from my grandfather. It is made for imperial (inch) sizes of dowel. When I went shopping, I found that (in Australia) dowel is now sold in metric sizes! I bought some 8 mm.

I then made up a couple of new bushes for 8 mm. One for you and one for me.

Here is an 8 mm bush in my dowelling jig.

To make a test joint.

1. Measure the thickness of the wood.

About 19 mm

We want the dowells to be in the middle, so put the drill bit in the jig bush and set it about 9.5 mm from the face.

I decided to place the dowels 10 mm from each edge. Marking centre lines 10 mm from each edge.

I then offered up the two pieces to be joined, and transferred the lines from one to the other.

Lines 1 and 2 are the lines that are measured 10 mm from each edge of the top piece.

Lines 3 and 4 are extensions of 1 and 2 onto the other piece.

Lines 5 and 6 show where the top piece will go.

Of course, in a REAL job, lines 5 and 6 would be placed first.

Measure the length of a dowel

About 40 mm

So... make the holes in each piece a little over 20 deep.

Set the drill depth collar.

(Note that this is NOT in the right place in the photo.)

Place dowelling jig in place on the wood.

Drill holes.

Put dowels in the holes.

Assemble

All together!

Note that I WAS WRONG when I was remembering the jig when I was in Bangalore. I must have been remembering a different jig that I used at school.

I remembered a notch for lining the jig up.

This is what I was remembering:

The pencil line 3 or 4 was lined up with the bottom of the notch. MY JIG does not have a notch, so I need to make a line on the edge of the wood and line up with that.

This is why I have extended the lines 3 and 4 onto the edge (lines “A”)

Note that the dowels that I have sent you have grooves along them. This is important to let the glue out! If you use plain dowel, make a groove along each dowel.

Happy dowelling!

Send me some photos of what you make with dowelled joints!

Richard.