Lotsa questions on drawbore mortising

I often groove / compress the dowel or peg with vise grips or channel lock pliers prior to glue and pound. Usually just the leading end.

-- Spheramid Enterprises Architectural Wood Works

A 3/8” dowel should go into a 3/8” hole without much/any problem.

Correctly done a pegged (drawbored) tenon will have the holes in the mortise piece and the tenon slightly offset. (The peg is actually pulling the tenon into the mortise.) So, in order to get your dowel to go into all three holes, you need to taper the end … the tapered end leads the peg through, and the peg will bend and pull everything tight.

Check out this video on draw bore mortising it may answer a lot of your questions and give you some reference.
http://www.woodworkingchannel.com/dolphin/vidego_video_library.php
Go to the Lie-Nielsen tool works button and click on it. Chris Swartze has a video in 2 parts.

-- I don't make mistakes, I have great learning lessons, Greg

I would not wax the dowels, and IMHO they should be glued.

The dowel rods available at big box stores tend to vary in size … when I built my bench ( http://lumberjocks.com/projects/18261 ) the oak dowel rod from Menards was a skosh over 1/2”. I sanded them down to get a snug fit.

-- Gerry -- "I don't plan to ever really grow up ... I'm just going to learn how to act in public!"

Sphere, thanks for this good advice!

Uffitze—sorry I didn’t make clear that my tests today were not of drawbore mortises. I just bored a hole into some 1 1/2” oak and tried driving in the dowel. I will certainly taper the ends of my dowels before doing this for real.
Do you have any rule of thumb regarding how tightly the dowels ought to fit—hand tight, tighter than that?

Gregn—thanks for the video suggestions. I shall surely look at them!

3fingerpat—Great tips! I’m thinking 1/16” offset would be good for this application. What would you suggest? I just went on LNs site and ordered their drawbore pins and dowel plate. Thanks for these tips!

TheDane—good information. I bought my oak dowels at The Home Depot. It is wood too. Going to move, swell a bit in humid weather…sizes probably aren’t real exact as you found. Me too!

Appreciate the help guys!

George

I see.

Well, I say, make yourself a dowel plate and make your own dowels … that way you’ll know what size drill bit to use.

Hand tight is probably fine … your glue will lube them up similar to the wax idea.

If I were going to do draw bore it:

You don’t want anything but wood if you are going to glue it. But even the glue is overkill when you are drawboring something on this scale. Also: WARNING WARNING. If you glue the pins, be quick about it. The moisture in the glue will make the pins swell. Faster than your might think.

I would go at most 1/16 offset on something like this. I would also probably use larger pins than 3/8. 1/2 or actually larger. I would personally go as much as 3/4 if the tenons are beefy enough for it. If they are not perfectly round, it will not even show up after driving them through. They will “self fill” as

The pins will be a pretty tight fit to the holes. Point them a bit (like a pencil). If they are through pins, (They will go all the way through both sides) I would make them nice and pointy. More leverage for drawing it tight. This will create the ramp to pull the tenons tight. On this size I would be prepared to do some serious convincing. Probably have my 3lb sledge handy. This is not going to be the job for a little carving mallet.

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