Woodworking Posts

Using Dowels for Joinery

There are many ways to join two boards for case work. My favorite and easiest way is to use the Festool Domino. There’s also biscuit joinery, pocket holes and traditional methods such as mortise and tenons. All of these techniques takes expensive special tools or jigs. The method I’m about to show you doesn’t require any specials tools except a drill and a mallet. To make life a little bit easier you’ll want some dowel centers to help you place your mating hole. These dowel centers are very cheap and can be picked up for just a couple of dollars.

Tools and Supplies Used

• Dowel Centers
• Dowel Pin
• 5/16″ Drill Bit
• Cordless Drill
• Rubber Mallet

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Step 1: Dowel Pins

Although you can use regular dowels for this method I find that many of the dowels bought from the home center is slightly under sized and I highly suggest using these dowel pins.

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Step 2: Dowel Centers

Using these dowel centers will help you align the mating holes. These little guys will make life much easier and improve alignment.

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Step 3: Setting the Hole Depth

With a small piece of masking tape you can set the depth of your hole by wrapping it around your drill bit and making a flag. I’m using a 5/16″ bit to go along with the 5/16″ dowel and 5/16″ dowel center.

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Step 4: Drilling Holes

Drill the holes where you’d like the butt joint to be in one piece.

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Step 5: Dowel Centers

Place in the dowel centers in the drilled holes.

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Step 6: Aligning Butt Joint

Align the mating pieces on the dowel centers and give it a tap with a rubber mallet. This will place a dimple on the mating piece.

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Step 7: Drill Mating Holes

Using the dimples drill the mating holes in the second piece.

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Step 8: Add Dowel Pins and Glue-up

Add some glue and your dowel pins and tap the pieces together and you should have a perfect butt joint. Be sure to throw some clamps on and let it dry for a few hours.

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Making a Wooden Coffee Mug

I got this beautiful chunk of walnut from my step dad. He cut down an old walnut tree from my childhood home an it’s been air drying for a few years now. I wanted to make the entire coffee mug out of one piece of walnut but the slab I had wasn’t tall enough so I ended up adding the maple bottom as you see here.

Food Safe Finish

When I started this wood coffee mug project I fully intended to use it as a real coffee mug. I coated the inside with a white Smooth-On plastic resin. When most resins and finishes completely cure after a few weeks they are food safe. Even if they don’t claim to be food safe. Your dining room table for instance probably has a polyurethane finish on it. Polyurethane isn’t promoted as food safe but once fully cured after a few weeks it’s safe enough to eat off of. I thought the white plastic resin I used would be perfect but it turns out that it gets soft when exposed to heat which is definitely not food safe. In my research I was able to find a few different “food safe” labeled epoxies but none of them mentioned they can be used for hot liquids. I’m sure there is something out there that can be used but I was unable to find it. If you know of anything that’s food safe for hot liquids please let me know in the comments down below. I may try and find a stainless steel insert and attempt this project again.

Thanks for stopping by! Be safe. Be passionate and Make Something!

Tools and Supplies Used

• Grizzly Bandsaw
• Bandsaw Blade
• Disc Sander (similar)
• F-Style Clamps(similar)
• 5 Minute Epoxy
• Titebond Wood Glue
• Jet Lathe
• Forstner Bit
• Dust Mask
• Ellipse Coping Saw
• Spindle Sander (similar)
• Wood Files
• Smooth-On Resin
• Random Orbit Sander
• Polyurethane
• Boiled Linseed Oil