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
Table/Chairs
Cabinet
Bookshelves
Doors

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.

Kitchen table and chairs by Bill Huber in Ft. Worth, Texas. Bill is a high profile member of the sawmillcreek.org forum, and is a long-time and highly proficient Dowelmax user.

Cabinet by Bill Chow. Bill is a long time attendee of the night school woodworking course taught by Doug Ferris at Kitsilano High School in Vancouver

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.