10 Attachment(s)
Review - Veritas Dowel & Tenon Cutters
Item:
Veritas Dowel & Tenon Cutters
Cost:
US$80.00
Available:
Lee Valley Tools - Important Announcement
Veritas® Tapered Tenon Cutters : CARBA-TEC
Somebody else who has posted video on You Tube:
Using the Veritas Dowel and Tenon Cutter - YouTube
I was fortunate enough to pick up the set of three cutter and socket adapters when I visited Lee Valley in Toronto in October 2011. They have been unused until today so I thought I would take a few photos. The idea of creating custom dowel out of any timber was appealing to me, particularly as I intend to make a few toys and I think that having the option to use something different to pine or Tasmanian oak is ideal.
To save me waffling on I will just quickly add the blurb from the Lee Valley site listed above as a general overview:
"These cutters can be used two ways. Using them like a hand-held pencil sharpener, you can put accurate tenons on the tips of turnings or on rustic furniture components. The cutters can also be used with a power feed to make accurate dowelling.
Most commercial dowelling is available only in nondescript Asian wood that has been milled, not turned. It is never perfectly round and seldom accurately sized. Using a hand drill for power, you need only cut square stock slightly oversize (1/16" over is ample) and use a square socket to power the stock through the dowel cutter. The carbon-steel blade in the plated zinc-alloy body is adjustable.
Works equally well in soft, green or hard woods. The curved blade is relatively easy to sharpen when required. Available in three finish diameters: 3/8", 7/16" and 1/2". The optional straight blade can be used to cut tapered tenons.
Dowel and tenon cutters made in Canada. Patented.
The four-sided square sockets are available individually or as a set that includes a socket adapter. Dowel capacity listed below. Both have a 3/8" square-drive end. The socket adapter has a 1/4" hex shank"
So down the the user review. I am currently making a toy truck from Cherry and Jarrah and decided that some Jarrah dowel would be a much better match for the project than the store purchased dowel. The first step was to prepare some stock to the 1/16" oversize on the table saw.
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To try and make it a little easier I just took off the square edges a little with a hand plane, leaving it square on one end for the socket attachment to attach to. The image also shows the 3/8" cutter.
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The cutter is secured and the square end of the stock inserted into the socket adapter.
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To help it get started I tried to turn the stock by hand first, which worked well.
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The first attempt was not a great success. Perhaps the feed rate with the drill was a little too fast and the stock split.
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To help the situation I applied a little Traditional Wax for the second attempt and found it worked a little better.
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The second attempt was a success. I have placed the finished dowel against the third square stock to show how much length is lost on the blank, which needs to be taken into consideration if the length is critical.
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I found that the cutter became very hot due to the friction associated with feeding the stock through. The wax and altering the feed rate helped however it still got particularly hot, which was a little concerning to me as I was wondering if I was doing it right. After breaking the first blank I managed to get the next three to work. The order that I made the dowels are from top to bottom in the photo below. It was interesting to note the slight bend on the third, when the cutter was at its hottest. Given the blanks were all cut from the same stock it would be interesting to explore further to see if the heat of the cutter affected the dowel.
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Each dowel produced was as, if not more, symmetrical than the store bought variety. The overall size was slightly bigger than the 3/8" cutter but still fine for my purposes. The finish seemed to be fairly good and more consistent than the results I have seen from the likes of the Lie Nielsen dowel plate (although I have not used one to be able to fully compare).
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The final photo just shows the compete kit with the finished dowels.
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Conclusion:
To be honest I was a little concerned about the heat being generated with the cutter. The dowel being slightly oversized wasn't a huge concern as the instructions do say that you can adjust the blade to refine the size as it may vary a little with different timbers. Initially I had thought that the exit hole was what determined the finished dowel size, however in writing this article I now may look at adjusting the cutters to refine the dowel size. To be honest I didn't adjust this cutter before using and just used it out of the box. Thinking about it now it may be the case that the cutter is cutting slightly larger than the exit hole and the heat was being generated as the dowel exiting was a little too tight in the exit hole of the cutter, and this would have created the additional heat.
The You Tube link above seems to show a much easier passage of the blank through the cutters, which may be down to the timber being used, but also perhaps as the finished dowel was slightly smaller than the exit hole. Next time I am in the garage I will try adjusting the blade in the cutter to see if I have better success. I am not quite sure why the description from Carbatec doesn't mention the cutters being used to make dowel (or why they have two additional sizes), but it does make me wonder if it is possible to adjust the blade to make a dowel smaller than 3/8" with the 3/8" cutter and I look forward to trying this out.
All in all I am happy with the product but I will need to play around a little to get the best results.
Cheers
Stinky.
