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Built this 3/8" 4-pin Dowel Jig out of 1" oak scraps, 1/2" steel tubing for the guides and 1/4" alum rods for the dowel spacer guides. I wanted to try something different than tongue & groove for my fourth storage bench lids.

Designed the jig on Sketchup and threw it together in an evening. I have since replaced the tap-in pronged T-Nuts with screw in type t-nuts which hold up much better. It works fantastic, my first trials required some tweaking, I didn't
have the 3/8" (1/2 tubing) exactly dimensioned from the edge on each side. Reworked it to 5/16" on each side and it works wonders now. Aligning the guides was really tough on a Craftsman benchtop drill press, they are nearly perfectly vertically aligned with one being off less than 1/64" of an inch which hasn't made a difference with the dowels thus far.

It was a fun project to build, not really a dowel fan so far, but I just wanted to see if it could be done. Oh yeah the cool thing is I made this for my most popular project mediums, starting with dead-stopping the fence (fully closed I guess) it's setup for 3/4" material which I use a lot and scribed for centerline and then it's adjustable to whatever sized medium from there. I have a woodworking auto-adjusting clamp ordered which is a little easier than the F-Style clamps. I slotted then grooved the base underside @3/8" deep and 3/4" wide for the fence slide.

Funny part - I had just finished watching "Conan the Barbarian" for the 20th time and decided to go back to the shop and finish this jig, well having seen the steel working going on in the foretold barbaric movie, decided I'd DIY harden the carbon steel 1/2"/3/8" tubing. So I set all four guides (prior jig insertion) on a stainless platform and heated them with my MAP-GAS to a bright red, then placed them in 30 wt motor oil to temper. Haha, honestly I don't know if I made them harder or tempered them, but they were pitch black now and the look on my wife's face coming into the garage seeing smoke and fire from nearly molten metal in oil was priceless :)...



This jigs sea-trials were successful on my wife's custom storage bench I designed for her.



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Brett, Very cool. Looks like a wooden version of the JessEm Paralign except for a fraction of the cost. Glad it worked out. Love the bench..
 

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Thanks Todd, it was a cool, fun little project. I'm headlong into building the Pantorouter right now, holy cow what a complex lil bugger of a machine. I'm assembling sub-structures though, all the parts are cut, etc, hardware ready, etc, etc. Can't wait to do some cool mortise & tenon joints with it.
 

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Nice work good work.
 

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Haven't done many dowel projects
looks like this could make them easier
nice work
 

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You have done an excellent job on this!!! I hope to make one similar someday!!! Did you use any particular 1/2" tubing for the guides and does that size have 3/8" internal dimension without any reaming? Thanks for posting. john

OH yea, great job on the bench too!!!
 

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Thanks Bill,

I don't know honestly if it's easier, the tongue & groove method used on my first bench lid was much faster, but there is some inherent strength here that seems stronger with doweling. The true benchmark of that strength for me is I've built four of these benches with various lids and everyone loved the stripped decking/butcher block appearance on the lids.

First bench lid I used 3/4" x 1-1/2" SYP with 3/8" deep tongue & groove, they came out aligned great but I noticed on glue-up it bowed pretty easy, so decided to tongue & groove a lateral edge piece (both sides), this super strengthened the entire piece.

VS

This last one for my wife prior adding the side laterals I had 3/4" deep dowels (each side) and on glue up of the main lid body it barely bowed a 1/16" of an inch. I was freaking impressed by that alone, so adding the side laterals was over the top stiffened the entire lid sub-assembly.

Drilling the holes was a bit slow for me, just because I work really fast though and with woodworking that bites me at times..haha, you know where you meant to measure 16" but measured 15" and now have a new scrap piece of wood, lol.

Anyway wood doweling has it's place in my shop, but I do NOT believe it's where I want to completely sell my soul to for wood joinery. There is something pure about mortise & tenon joinery, especially with "draw-boarding" m&t joints and kerf/wedging through tenons, just find it beautiful "show-your-work" kind of quality. Albeit, I'm not Moses & if I couldn't build an Ark with a router vs wooden mallet & chisels, well reckon I'd call AAA.
 

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Thank you foneman, I used the 1/2" tubing from either Lowes or Home Depot (can't remember which) but they are the same. The steel tubing is 1/2" OD & 3/8" ID.

I started to order some nice thread in style insert guides, but couldn't quantify it using wood, albeit "oak", had I had a chunk of 1" aluminum, well yeah, I'd have done some things differently maybe.

My initial setup used the aluminum 1/2"/3/8" tubing and was flush 1" thick. It was just a proof-of-concept at that point and I decided that adding 5/16" to the tubing length would provide a better drill guide (which it did). Alum being soft to cut was my reason initially, then switched them to steel tubing.
 

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Thanks for the update!! I will pick up a piece of that tubing/pipe the next time I am at the hardware store.

john
 

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That's awesome. I have no excuse to not try and make one of these.
 

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Remember it is not a 15" piece of scrap it is a new project limited to 15"

Right LOL
 

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Sounds legit Bill and sometimes that becomes the project indeed, somethings gotta give somewhere. Tell you what though, using Sketchup is pretty exacting and aside from dohdoh moments I have, the dimensions typically are spot on, now to just get my measuring spot-on! lol
 

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Yelp I like sketchup also
It can be a real help sometimes
 

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I just can't seem to get the hang of Sketchup enough to make it more than an obstacle.
 

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Definitely Bill and William I almost thought it was just a blah program, but I did some YouTube searching and wow, there are some good vids to teach you the basics and a setup for woodworking as well.

That said I have a lot to learn with it, I do find it has some wierd non-real AutoCAD issues with snapping lines now and then, but it's probably my needing to learn more. I've used it on my last six woodworking projects to a great success and I'm just a beginner with it. You might just give it another chance and do some YouTube searching.
 

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yeah I've just got to overcome the crustiness in my brain and buckle down. The guys over on the machining forum I frequent swear by it also.
 

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BGT
I too watched a lot of tutorials on the subject that really help
my problem is that I walk away from it for awhile and have to relearn parts of it all over
But it is a great program
 

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LOL Bill, same with me sir, sometimes I learn a new basic whatever…then leave it alone a bit and have to start all over, frustrating at times.
 

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If you like I will send a photo of the jig that I used
 

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