I have come to the end of my supply of these dowels and I love hand carving them into tools used by embroiderers, called laying tools. This species of wood finishes beautifully, maintains its gloss and has beautiful coloration and density. The density is what I need since certain fibers will be drawn across the tool and things which are delicate, like silk, just not snag on anything.
I have searched high and low for this wood in a dowel. I have seen it sold in blanks or larger pieces, but I'd have to rip them all down to 3/8 x 3/8.
Please, does anyone know how I can do this without power tools?
A hand cranked gizmo that took a square cross section piece down to a dowel used to be made-I think by Stanley (I actually used one at the Penland School a few years back): You may be able to find one at an antique too dealer. You'd still need to have the wood as fairly small cross section sticks however. Hope that this is of some help
There is an outside chance -- Hibdon Hardwood used to sell these in 3' lengths, wholesale mainly. I believe that they are no longer making them but there is an outside chance they may still have some lying around. Also, if you are using short sections you may be able to use defective dowels if they have any of those lying around.
I sent them an email. In the off chance they don't or don't know anyone who does, what do I need to cut my own from larger pieces?
I know a lathe will give me the rounds I need, but I can whittle that. What I need to know is the minimum type saw I'd need to rip the blanks. I can always buy blanks which are 3/8 to 1/2 inch thick and cut them, but what way to do that is what I need to know. I don't think a table saw (!) will be cost effective, and I can't go buy anything Norm uses because I sit on my couch and carve...although I lust over his shop!
Victoria, If you can't find the dowels, you could buy the bulk pieces and have a local wood worker cut them to the size you need. It would only take a few minutes with a table saw, so it shouldn't cost very much. If you don't know anyone with a saw, look in the yellow pages for a cabinet maker. They will have what you need to cut any sizes you need.
: I know a lathe will give me the rounds I need, but I can whittle that. What I need to : know is the minimum type saw I'd need to rip the blanks. I can always buy blanks which : are 3/8 to 1/2 inch thick and cut them, but what way to do that is what I need to know. I : don't think a table saw (!) will be cost effective, and I can't go buy anything Norm uses : because I sit on my couch and carve...although I lust over his shop!
The Woodworker's Source in Arizona sometimes carries boards of chakte koke, and they do milling. The could cut whatever size you want on a bandsaw.
Their web page is
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and they have an 800 number: 1-800-952-2123 . -- Andy Barss
I did email this company and they do have it and will cut it for me. I'm waiting for a price. I wonder why nobody makes dowels using this wood, any more. It is such beautiful wood. Maybe there's not much call for dowels in redheart. I was buying the dowels 36" by
3/8 for two dollars. I doubt I'll see that again. Who knows.
v
It is likely that the dowels you were buying came from Hibdon since I don't think that anybody else was distributing them (exotic dowels) at the wholesale level.
These things are difficult to make and they are made on very expensive machines -- moulders, not lathes. The market is small, the reject rate is high, the profit is small...
The moulder cuts with knives -- in this case from the top and the bottom. If the knives are not adjusted and ground exactly right the dowel will be mis-shapen and/or have 'stripes' and nobody would want it. The knives which are very expensive cannot be reground too many times or the dowel will be over-sized.
You can't sell these things, nor make them, in random lengths or short lengths. So, 3' became the standard. The problem is that if you have an 8' board you end up using 3/4 of it and then have a 2' board which is expensive firewood. While there is a randomness in exotic lengths, things never seem to work out as well as they should. Also, the widths seldom work out well -- the knife will cut several dowels from a board (side by side) on a single pass. You end up with half a dowel on one edge.
Then, many of the exotics are brittle. If they shatter in the moulder you need to shut the thing down, clean up the mess... Down time is expensive.
I looked at a number of ways to make dowels commercially with low-speed and low tech equipment. I never found a way which I thought was worth trying. There are not-too-expensive rotary dowel machines which could be made to work on larger diameters but are problematical on 1/4 and
3/8. Also, the cut is poor so then the dowel needs to be sanded. With sanding there is no way to maintain any accuracy in terms of the diameter so customer complaints and returns are assured.
And so it goes...
I think that the above will give you all the flavor of the problem.
Tried to find the # in the catalog, seems that Lee Valley is not selling the dowels anymore, sorry, but they do sell a dowelmaker now ,kind of pricey though
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