The fastest tool you'll ever 3D Print!

An upcoming project I'm working on requires the use of dowels. I don't commonly use this type of joinery, so my tool chest lacks any jigs, or specialized tools to help with alignment. What I specifically need are a handful of dowel centers - those little metal plugs with a pointed end that you put in a dowel hole. Once you press a mating piece of wood against it, the pointed end makes a small indentation that positions the hole center.

You can of course buy these for a few bucks, but with a project this simple, it was easy to model the shape in xDesign and print out a bunch. 

I made mine for a 1/4" dowel, but the design can easily be adjusted for any diameter dowel. I added a shallow chamfer to the bottom of the part to make it easy to pace into a hole, and I tapered the shoulder so the parts would print without supports!

 

Check out this short video that shows how the parts were designed using xDesign:

 

 

If you'd like to print your own dowel centers, you can download this ZIP file that contains:

  • the native xDesign model
  • a neutral STEP file
  • a print-ready STL

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