DIY STEP 1:PREPARE

For do-it-yourself projects with the Dowelmax joinery system, these 4 steps will help whether you are building a cabinet, table, door, shelf or entertainment unit. The first step is to prepare a plan and cut list for your project. Once you have created the plan, select good dry wood for your project. If you are using solid wood, follow basic good wood working principles such as cutting, planing and jointing your pieces slightly oversize and let them sit for a week before completing final dimensioning.

DIY Step 2:CUT

When cutting pieces of wood for your diy project, make sure that you follow these rules to ensure quality results. Cut pieces with the same dimension using the same setup on your tools. For example, if you are building a cabinet or dresser with a face frame, make sure that all pieces with the same dimension are exact. The same rule applies if you are planing or jointing pieces for the face frame as you will end up with a better project if all pieces are the same thickness, even if the dimension is slightly off on all pieces. And most important, make sure your 90 degree cuts are bang on to ensure tight fitting joints. Check saw setups and angles before starting and routinely check each piece as it is cut with a square.

DIY STEP 3:MARK AND DRILL

Marking the pieces for assembly is critical to ensure absolute flush joints. Be sure to follow the guidelines contained on our Basic Concepts page. This will ensure that the fronts of your face frames for cabinets, table tops and other joints are exactly flush and professional. If you do have a minor discrepancy in the thicknesses of the pieces you are joining they will be on the back side of your joint where they will not be seen, or can be sanded or planed. Drill the appropriate number of dowel holes in each piece being careful to set the drill guide depth to just slightly deeper than one half of the dowel length.

DIY STEP 4:ASSEMBLY

The final step of your do it yourself project is assembly. You may want to do a “dry fit” of your project to make sure that all of the pieces line up properly, although the Dowelmax is so easy to use, many professionals go right to the “glue ad assemble” stage as their confidence and experience with this tool increases. Add a couple of drops of glue in each hole and apply glue on the dowel and joint surfaces prior to assembly and clamp until glue dries.

Customer Projects and Professional Woodworker Furniture Built using the Dowelmax Wood Joinery System

Display Cabinet
Garden Bench
TV Easel
Bookshelves
Doors

Cabinet by Robert M.

Hello Jim; The cabinet is my first project with Dowelmax. It is almost entirely made with dowels (nearly 100). The only screws are used to hold the base top on - 2 fixed and 4 to hold the slider brackets - so the top can expand freely, it is solid maple from the old family farm. The top back is made as a raised panel using slip lap joinery on the back for wood movement ( again solid maple ). The front is done in a wainscotting effect to enhance movement without being obvious to the eye. The drawers are solid maple using finger joinery and ball bearing drawer slides. The trim on the front and the raised panels on the bottom is Macasser Ebony. The mullions in the top doors were my biggest challenge to make on the router. The original design came from the Canadian Home Workshop and was chosen by my daughter. I then modified and contacted you as I wanted to try dowel joinery. It was a challenge at first as one must keep oriented at all times. That achieved one can move along quite quickly. I might add assembly must be thought out carefully when two end gables ane three cross supports become one glue - 18 dowels at once. My latest cabinet is made of solid black walnut and butternut and all the butternut is hand carved - 140 dowels in it. If you have any further questions, please free to contact me.
Compliments of THE SEASON.
Robert M.

Cedar Garden Bench by Glenn Mainland

I have just completed a cedar garden bench which we will be installing in a small park in our nearby hamlet of Spruce View as a memorial to a very plucky lady who fought invasive cancers for a long time, while always rewarding us all with a great smile.
The design comes from one by Shaw Creek General Store. We deviated from their plan by substituting dowels for all the M&T joints, and for the screwdown attachment of the seat slats. Used a total of 198 1/4 and 3/8 dowels. Apart from being much easier to construct using my Dowelmax, I think that there is possibly less opportunity for water penetrating the lower vertical joints .I will admit I have a length of board with quite a collection of holes as I tried to get exactly the right spacing for the vertical slats!
I got a special order of clear red cedar for the job. Who says money doesn't grow on trees!
It is finished with three coats of Sikkens Cetol 1, topped off with a coat of Cetol 23 Plus. This should provide good protection from our Alberta weather, where UV damage is the worst hazard.
I have to get a memorial plaque to fasten on the top rail and we will then install it bolted down to two 24X30 concrete paving blocks.

Glenn

Hello Jim,

You may recall my e-mail about building the TV Easel amost 3months ago.
I did finish it the end of October and installed it at my daughters'.
and here are a few pictures.

Dowelmax TV Easel

4 wipe-on coats of Antique Danish Oil. Made by Swing Paints out of Montreal.

Dowelmax TV Easel

And here it is installed with the TV and Soundbar:

Dowelmax TV Easel

Only glue and dowels, using your Dowelmax. I had to make some special spacers to be able to make some of the joints. The only mechanical fasteners were two benchbolts. It was the only way I could draw the joint of the legs to the feet together.
I don't have appropriate clamps to clamp that joint. I also used a toilet flange bolt to initially pull the angled strut to the bottom shelf. I then drilled for and installed four dowels through the bottom of the shelf into the bottom of the angled strut and trimmed them flush after. If you are interested in how I drilled for some of the more unusual joints, I'll be glad to e-mail some more pictures. By the way daughter and husband are delighted with it and it has received many favourable comments from family and friends. It was a challenging project, but I enjoyed it very much. Your dowelmax performed flawlessly.
Thanks.

Tim.

Bookshelves built using the Dowelmax by professional woodworker Tony Towers of Prince George, BC.

Custom woodwork doors built using the Dowelmax by professional woodworker Terry Franker of woodworking business Franker Enterprises, Inc. Visit Franker Enterprises, Inc to view photo gallery of door construction.