How to Use a Dowel jig? – The Definitive Guide
Before a decade or two, people used to make half cut holes over the log slice to join two pieces of woods. After the joining process, they had to put some pieces of extra wood which work as fillers. They had been placed over the semi cut holes hoping that they will match them exactly. And if not, there could be a difference when stained, dyed or painted. So, for some people, this activity was not the ideal thing to do!
Moreover, there was another risk waiting for! some wood work gets damaged by this process as sometimes the log piece might be cracked because of the fundamental nature of screws; if they did not clamp down properly. So, the alternative to this issue is to use dowels and hiding all of these matters inside!
Before we start our article, let’s understand what a dowel is!
What is a dowel?
In simple language, we can say that a dowel is a well cut and well-carved piece of wood, a wooden cylinder, which can be used to joint 2 log kinds of wood for better fitting. To join the dowels, there is a helping hand known as ‘Jig.’
How to use a dowel jig?
To use a dowel jig is an incredibly easy task you know! Even if you are not friendly to wood works, you can easily use the dowel jigs for your day to day needs. If you are new to this, just relax because you can easily get the dowels from the hardware store. There are many types of dowels available in the store, with plenty of size option. Here we give step by step guide to using a dowel jig.
Step 1: Take your dowel jig and loosen the side bolts. The jigs are always being expandable.
Step 2: Take two pieces of log you want to join and mark their sides where you want to make holes.
Step 3: Now, line up the wood part precisely to the doweling jig. Don’t forget to match marks before drilling.
Step 4: Tightened the bolts so that the logs cannot move and you can drill without disturbing the wood piece.
Step 5: Start the driller, put it into the black round parts of the jig and make the holes. Keep in mind that you can even change the size of the black parts according to the size of drill bit.
Step 6: Now take another piece of log, on which you want to make holes for dowels and repeat the whole process.
Note: To drill the second piece of wood, you have to take the other side of the doweling jig for the horizontal drilling. Moreover, there are possibilities that you do not get proper clamping there. Use your manual clamp to stop the log movement for the accurate result.
Step 7: Now, it’s time to do some handy work here at this point. Put the dowels into the holes of one log, match the check marks, and tight both the logs.
Step 8: Check all the joints. If you feel that you need some extra protection, you can also use glue before attaching the second log.
Fluted Dowels
We suggest you to use fluted dowels. A plain dowel is an economical option, but if you want the better result, you should avoid using plain dowels. Instead, there are better alternatives like fluted dowels. Prefer to use fluted dowels, which are prepared commercially. There are different sizes like a quarter inch, one inch, etc. for various joint works.
The reason why you should use this fluted dowels is that they have such design which allows the glue to spread into the marks for the better result. Just because of the more surface area, we can get some solid bond of glue. Such dowels also have slightly undersized edges. That means; after going into the holes; they can form a very tight bond, make a nice snug, and gives an accurate fit.
We hope this write up is and will be useful for you and all the people related to some amazing wood arts. There are many dowel jig kits available online as well as in the stores. In the dowel jig kit, you can get ¼”, 3/8” and ½” drill bits, stop collars, indexing pins, etc. Some packages also provide few dowels of different sizes. So for what you are waiting for? Go, buy one, and make awesome creations!
