Replies

1. 
   wrudiger | May 07, 2006 10:45pm | #1

   What is the question?  You are correct, updating from dowels is definately worth considering.  What are you building?  What kind of joints are you considering? 

   If you are charging to the finishing phase it may be too late for some joint choices, but still OK for others.  For example, floating tenons are a good replacement for dowels.  Pocket screws are awesome in the right application.  

1. 
   9619 | May 08, 2006 05:56pm | #4

   Hi,
   I read your response in which you approved of upgrading from dowels. Over 30 years ago, my brother showed me his Stanley doweling jig. I bought one, and have used it for a long time, mostly for joining the rails and stiles on raised panel doors. From much practice, I found that it was difficult to use more than two dowels in one joint because, even being super careful, the old Stanley jig has some imprecision. I could easily use my router to do make the joints for raised panel doors, but I just stuck with the way that I had learned. Then a few months ago, I bought a DowelMax which is VERY precise, and lets me put in 5 dowels without moving the jig, and lets me put in as many as I would want, with a very precise way of moving the jig.
   Since buying and using the DowelMax, I have been reading up on dowel joints, and I read that dowels, which are "round loose tenons", are not as good as the regular flat tenons for a number of reasons, including: 1) not much edge grain in the joint, 2) dowels expand and contract with changes in humidity and the joint weakens, 3) dowels and holes are rarely as round as you think, etc etc etc.
   Sorry it took me this long to get to my question. If all of this is true, then why haven't I had a single failure in my dowel joints of the past 35 years. Is 35 years too soon to be a good test? Are the arguments against dowels more "theoretical" than practical? Or is it that regular flat tenons really and truely are a "better" joint than multiple dowels, but in actual practice, both work just fine.
   I am sure that I could quickly buy and learn to use a mortising machine, and replace the dowel joints with mortise and tennons that are much deeper than the "cope and stick" router method of doing doors. I could set up my router to do mortise and tenons with round edges, or I could square them up with chisels. I could also do "draw bore pinned mortise and tenons, on each of the four joints on a door. The last method would surely be the "Best", eg the stiffest joint, and the least likely to be affected if the glue in the joint fails, since it is a "mechanical joint".
   Woodworking is my hobby. I tend to design and make one piece and then move on to another. I don't do mass production. With the Dowelmax, I can easily put three to five dowels in each of the four door joints, very quickly and easily. Using this jig is almost as fast as using a pocket hole jig, except that do you have to glue and clamp. It is certainly much faster than most methods of making mortise and tenons, but probably not as fast as a router-based "cope and stick" joint. The only reason that I have stuck with it is it is the way I learned first and I have never had a failure. Maybe my experience is atypical.
   By the way, I am not "pushing" the Dowelmax. I did buy one, and am trying to see what it really is good for. I have made five-inch deep drawers that are 20" x 24" and are solid as a rock. Each joint has six dowels, which are perpendicular to the travel of the drawer. I have found it easy to use for making face frames (two dowels per joint). It is certainly far better than my trusty old Stanley doweling jig.
   I am just trying to gather more info from experienced woodworkers on the real pluses and minuses of dowelled joints of various types. I did the dowelled drawer as a lark. Usually I do drawers with hand-cut dovetails, but occassionally use my old Sears dovetail jig. I have owned a few Victorian chests of drawers with the "dowelled" drawer joints, that are still tight.
   The dowel joint that takes the most abuse are joints in chairs. I have seen highly used chairs in which the dowelled joints failed, but I have seen many that have been used for the better part of a century and are still in tact. Given that, dowel joints in drawers and in doors should last even longer, since the forces on them are much less than on chairs.
   In any case, I am looking forward to your reply. I may be 62 but I have a lot to learn from other experienced woodworkers. Besides, I enjoy the learning almost as much as the doing. Any thoughts that you give me will be well appreciated. If anyone else has any ideas on this, which are based on experience or on theory (but hopefully both), I would like to hear them. Thank you very much.

1. 
   wrudiger | May 08, 2006 10:43pm | #6

   As Boss Crunk stated, dowels are fine.  The Dowelmax is pretty impressive  (ought to be at that price!).  It's realtively small steps from that to the Beadlock to the floating tenon.  You invested in the Dowelmax, I invested in the horizontal boring machine.  Yours is way easier to store - LOL.   Good alignment, good tolerances, good glue are the keys in my opinion. 

   Like you I'm still learning, that's what I love about this forum.  One thing is for sure - there are lots of equally valid ways to solve just about any given problem.  Dowels for drawer boxes - cool!  With 50 drawers in the new kitchen I used the router table and a miter lock joint.  Maybe not as pretty as dovetails, but I was able to finish and install them on schedule.

1. 
   9619 | May 08, 2006 11:27pm | #7

   WRudiger,
   Thank you for your answer. I wouldn't recommend using the Dowelmax for mass producing drawers. I just made four large drawers to test out the Dowelmax. It works but gluing up a drawer with 24 dowels at one time is a bit of a pain. If I was doing 50 drawers, I would also use lock joints. I didn't "need" the Dowelmax. It looked very good. Now that I have it, it looks VERY impressive -- as if it was machined for an airplane part. However, it has caused me to try to get answers about the use of dowels: How many dowels in different types of joints? How tight should the fit be? The inventor of Dowelmax says to try a 9.7mm, a 9.6mm and a 3/8" drill and see what works best in different situations. He recommends the 9.7mm bit when you are using a number of dowels in the same joint. That gives you a bit of "wiggle room". Then there is the question of what type of dowel to use. You can now get ones that are compressed, and which expand when water based glue is added. Of course, there is the question of length of the dowel.
   I found dozens of published articles, done at universities on dowel joints. There are a few people who have made a career out of studying this. In general, they show that you should have a tight fit for your dowels, but not too tight, because that will cause the glue to be scraped off.
   After going through all of this, I have decided to continue to try the Dowelmax and to check out the results in different situations, along with different options. I stopped reading all of the scholarly articles on dowels, because they really didn't help. I have come to the conclusion that the fit of a multi-dowel joint should be much the same as a dovetail joint. If you have to pound the joint too hard to get it to come together, then it is too tight. If hand pressure will get the joint together, or light tapping with a mallet, then it is probably OK.
   I would welcome anyone else's ideas on the efficacy of dowel joints, especially for raised panel doors.
   Thank you.

2. 
   artd10 | May 08, 2006 11:41pm | #8

   I too have the old Stanley doweling jig and have used it extensively.  Last year I bought the Grizzly G0540 horizontal boring machine. Equipped with end mills, it maskes an excellent slot mortiser. The loose tenon joints are easier, faster, and theoretically (because of the increased gluing surface) considerably stronger. I'll never go back. I'm 74 and still learning.  Art  

2. 
   Napie | May 08, 2006 04:35am | #2

   You need to be a lot more specific in the question, what type of joints, for what applications?

3. 
   TrueGentleman | May 08, 2006 07:40am | #3

   I think I know what you are saying.  I see some benefit to upgrading to biscuits.  mostly time, but I use dowels of different sizes.  They work well, and I can easily create my own when needed.  Do what works for you and is suited for the joint

4. 
   BossCrunk | May 08, 2006 06:03pm | #5

   Loose tenon joinery puts more beef in the joint.  Traditional mortise and tenon joinery has been proved in more than one test to be the 'best.'  That said, dowels can be perfectly fine too.