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Dowel Drilling Jig

You can sharpen your woodworking skills with helpful tips and techniques from the editors of Woodsmith and ShopNotes magazines. Get a FREE tip sent to your email address each week! Go to WoodworkingTips.com and sign up today.Here’s last week’s tip from ShopNotes online editor Phil Huber:

Drilling a centered hole in a dowel can be a challenge. It’s hard to get the drill bit centered and keep the dowel from turning as the hole is drilled. To make it easier, I built the jig shown below.

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Build the jig by first drilling a hole the diameter of the dowel in a piece of hardwood. Then just cut a saw kerf through the hole from the end to make a clamp.

Using the jig is simple. Begin by centering the dowel under the bit. To do this, clamp a piece of scrap wood to the table and drill a hole to fit the dowel. Then change out the bit to the size needed.

Next, slip the dowel into the hole in the scrap wood. Then slip the clamping jig over the dowel and squeeze the kerf together with a small clamp. Now you can clamp the jig in place and drill the hole in the center of the dowel.

To learn more essential woodworking tips and techniques, just go to: http://www.plansnow.com/basics.html.

Good Woodworking,

Phil Huber
Online Editor, ShopNotes

Posted on Tuesday, April 8th, 2008 at 4:04 pm. Filed under ShopNotes Magazine, WoodNet.net, WoodworkingTips.com.
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2 Responses to “Dowel Drilling Jig”

Wayne Helfrich said,

Great jig. I will make one tomorrow for a project I am doing. Do you know or have you seen a jig for sharpening ends of raw posts. Say three inches in diameter. I saw in a woodwork shop some time ago where a table saw was used to sharpen the end of a post. These pieces were used for makeing furnature …chairs and beds.

Any info would be greatly appreciated.

Wayne Helfrich
Vancouver, Canada

Check my web page out at http://www.woodenpuzzlesarefun.ca

(posted on November 4th, 2008 at 2:48 am)

Sharon McCarthy said,

Greetings! I am also trying to find a jig set-up for drilling centered holes in the end of dowel rod. I’m making parrot perches and the dowel pieces I want to drill are quite long, 14 to 18 inches. I want to put hanger bolts in the ends, first drilling a pilot hole, then a larger hole for the wood threads.

I have a bench-top drill press but even with the table out of the way I can’t place these long dowels in a vertical position and secure them well enough to get a clean center hole.

Is there any kind of jig, like a clamp-on jig that would keep a bit straight when hand-drilling horizontally with the dowel clamped in a V-vise? Thanks!! sharon

(posted on January 24th, 2009 at 12:14 pm)