Novice question - how do I put a point on a 3/4" dowel

Spoke pointer. A fence and a belt or disk sander could also do it.

In message , Ecnerwal writes

They used to make big thick pencils as tourist gifts. I think they were about 3/4 inch. Maybe they actually make a pencil sharpener

also look for Crayon sharpeners

a quick Google for giant pencil found this

I've done a few hundred of those.. It's really pretty simple..

An inexpensive disk sander like this one

mac

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On Tue, 4 Nov 2008 8:27:44 -0600, snipped-for-privacy@gmail.com wrote (in message ):

If you have no woodworking experience, if you tried to do this project yourself you'd have to go through the whole learning process involved in making a neat job of this project. While I am an enthusiastic supporter of learning by doing, and messing around with wood is absolutely wonderful any time -- I do not know anything else about you and your circumstances and the circumstances of this project and cannot make a single good recommendation. The very simplest one would be what you have suggested and that is to find a shop in your area that would do the job at a reasonable cost. Or, maybe you have a friend or friendly associate with a home workshop who could help out. There are so many different ways of doing this little task, depending on just exactly what you need, that I can think of eleventy different ways of doing this, myself. Buying a lathe for this would be overkill, though if I really wanted a new lathe... Sincerely, tom koehler

Actually a rounded end on the stake will be easier to drive into dirt and sand than a pointed end. Maybe you can find some wooden balls just a tad larger in diameter than the dowells and drill a hole in them and glue the dowell onto it.

a machinist I used to know by the last name of Hatfield obtained a patent on that idea back in the late 1980's.

DL

Something you might want to look at is adapting a rounding plane to put the point on the end of the dowel. Tools for Working Wood[1] sells these and has one for 3/4". I've not tried this myself, so you should probably give Joel Moskowitz (the owner of TFWW) at (800) 426-4613 and ask if the blade on one of the rounding planes could be skewed enough to put a point on a dowel.

I guess that would depend on if you like doing a reptitive task hundreds of times. :) If you really do wind up needing hundreds of these things, finding a vendor that could supply you with the dowels all ready pointed would be the way to go. If I was in the same situation I wouldn't mind doing a few tens of these things, but doing hundreds would be too mind numbing to consider.

Hi Mark, One simple, but effective method to put accurate and repeatable points on cylindrical material is to rotate the rod, dowel, etc. against a rotating abrasive at the desired angle. ex: hold the rod in a hand drill and hold the rotating tip against a rotating sanding disc at the desired angle. In your case the 3/4 in. diameter would not likely fit most hand drill chucks, but you could hold a screw in the drill chuck and attach to a length of waste at the non- pointed end of the dowels. ie. cut the dowels a little over 48" for the screw to act as a screw chuck for driving the rod. Somebody here may know of a better way to drive the dowels with a hand drill.

This method works well for pointing metal rods also. Just substitute a grinding wheel for the sanding disc.

And Mark, don't waste the opportunity to buy a Jet mini-lathe for far more fun than pointing dowels. You'll never regret it! :)

Turn to Safety, Arch Fortiter

Use a "dowel pointer". See:

"Arch" wrote: One simple, but effective method to put accurate and

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Arch, let me suggest a method based on your idea which would be simple to carry out. No need to chuck the dowel in a drill, since sanding speed comes from the sanding disk (or belt.) I would turn it by hand, using a crank or "T" which can be slipped onto the end of the dowel. I would drill a 3/4" hole in a block of wood, and clamp it to the sander table, to produce the desired angle on the "pencil point."

If you make two cranks (or T's), then someone (your wife?) could help by adding and removing them while you do the sanding--this would speed things up considerably.

snipped-for-privacy@gmail.com skreiv:

Maybe this one:

Do they really have to be rounded to a point. Could you just cut them at an angle. The point would be off center but for sticking in the ground it should be fine.

Good "point", Harry..

I'm remembering now that when we moved into the new house a few years ago, the wife needed a bunch of support posts for the garden.. I used 3/4" PVC pipe, cut to about 45 degrees on the band saw.. First batch was cut at 45 from opposing sides but didn't work as well as the ones that were only angled on one side..

mac

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Looks like the winning suggestion to me!

Rick