How to Use Dowel Centers | Tricks of the Trade

Many of us have used dowels to hold the edges of boards together, but when you want to locate dowels in the center of a board's face, measuring can get tricky. Meet the simple dowel center!

Links to products shown in the video:

[paulweiler]

As a new woodworker I love you guys that teach me the tricks. Thanks!

[alisonkempster]

Neat and so simple! I'd not heard of dowel centres until today and until I saw this video assumed I'd fit the dowel into the first piece and stick the dowel centres on the other end of the dowel, rather than putting them in the dowel hole! This should make aligning my end on end shelf extension a piece of cake (famous last words)!

[NBGTFO]

I just did 16 dowels using the dowel centers and the joints were perfect! Much better than prior ones I've done using a dowel jig. This is now my standard method for doing dowels and I'll be much less hesitant to using dowel joinery in the future!

[whothefoxcares]

he's a sharp guy and on the point.

[jasonm]

Thank you for sharing your knowledge! I am building a shelf and will be using dowels for the first time.

[mmussie]

I was racking my brain trying to figure out where to drill the holes so that boards are perfectly aligned! This helps. THANK YOU!

[nja]

Fantastic! I didn’t know the center points existed. 👍

[rolandmetayer]

Thank you sir ! This is easy, not very expensive and accurate enough for most of my projects. Cheers from Canada, Polar Bear country.

[ttttenney]

This video is exactly what I was looking for. Thanks for the helpful tip!

[dtalg]

thats awesome thanks currently working on a project for a cage for some of my pets and my next step is drilling the dowel holes this is gonna save a ton of time.

[kamleo]

In one of Matthias Wandel's many videos he showed how to get the most out of a self-centering doweling jig. He used the doweling jig to drill holes on the sides and ends of narrow stock and on wider board surfaces. He used a small piece of wood, approximately 0.75"W x 8"L x 0.5"D, placed it between the jaws of the doweling jig to keep the jig upright, clamped the stabilized jig to the stock, and drilled the holes. There's no guessing with his approach. Put centering lines on the small piece of wood, align the jig to your marks, and drill vertical holes with the doweling jig.

[corissaberrett]

Awesome. Efficient. Easy. Clear. That you for the video!

[Blah-blah-sure]

Thanks. My mind is blown. I got interested in dowl joiners & picked up The General dowl jig. And it had these. Now I know how to use them! 😊

[sovietonion]

Could of done with them today, never seen or knew they even existed, thanks for that, hope the hardware store has it. 👍

[halsonger]

Dowel centers are also great for when you are working on a jig and need to make sure a drilled through-hole in one board aligns with a T-nut on a mating board. The dowel center in the hole tells you where the center for the T-nut needs to be or any other hole you need to align.

[timbarton]

A lil after 1:25 the vertical board slightly shifts. Make sure you have a 90 degree guide board along the side of both boards. That lil shift means a lot!

[janinehudson]

Ha! I've just watched this to see what the collars were for- and see that I had already done this 2 years ago!
How soon we forget!

[StuffUCanMake]

Great information. Thanks for sharing with us.

[shevaphoenix]

easy, peasy. this is exactly what I needed! thanks so much!

[sergeychiv]

Hi. I have been using this for several years now. It is very comfortable