I made a few dowels this weekend for a project. A handy thing to know how to do, when you want some of a particular wood. A couple of tools in particular make this really quick.

First I cut square strips from my walnut on the table saw. Then I used a low-angle block plane to pare the strips down into octagon-shaped sticks. Stopping at this point might work just fine depending on the application. I could see the handmade rough octagon shape being a nice touch in some joinery.

 

 

Then I put one end of the stick into the drill press, supported the other end loosely with a hole in a piece of plywood, and used a shaver tool (like a Stanley Surform) to make it round.

It took me a little while to find the right tools to do this job, but now that I have the process down it will be quicker than going to the store and buying dowels. For very small amounts, anyway.

UPDATE: This is a crappy way to make dowels. some of them turned out to be out of round in a lumpy way that was unappealing.