This is another brief post explaining how to make a very handy hand tool in no time. If you are in need of custom made dowels, this is a very useful tool. As usual I got this idea from Lie-Nielsen.

All you need is a scrap piece of steel. I took this chunk of steel left over from another project and drilled 5 holes starting at 10 mm increasing by 0.5 mm at a time up to 12 mm.

 

The idea is to cut square strips of wood slightly bigger than needed, shape it a smidgen with a plane …

 

… and tap it through the holes, starting with the biggest that would accept the blank and moving down to the size intended. In the pictures below you can see how I made the dowels for my mallet. If you want to know more about the process of building the mallet, see the post titled “Mallet Mania”.

 

… and voilà, some custom Witpeer dowels!!!