Dowelmax Classic 3/8 Precision Engineered Joining System

I had previously purchased a Dowl-it jig, and was dis-satisfied due to its imprecision. The Dowl-it jig is a self-centering jig, meaning that it is supposed to put the dowel hole exactly in the middle of your workpiece. Regrettably, it doesn't quite do this, with the result being that your joined pieces never quite line up, and you are stuck with a lot of sanding to hide your imperfections. It also cannot handle with any precision operations which require many dowel holes, such as joining two long pieces together. The Dowelmax is not a self-centering jig. It takes a completely different, and more useful, approach--it spaces the dowel holes at an exact distance from any given wood face. Its precision is derived from the fact that due to the way it is constructed, it always allows you to drill the hole from the same face. So the pieces always line up perfectly. Even if the planks you are joining are not the same thickness, you can always get them to line up perfectly on one face. The spacers included in the kit allow you to put in your dowels at different distances from the face or make multiple, precise rows. So, if you want the faces to offset, you can do that too. In fact, using washers (2 1/16" are provided, and you can add more) you can make this thing offset at ANY distance. So far, every application I have imagined, I've been able to implement with the DowelMax. That includes putting in dowels at slight angles, so I could make a chair with a narrower back than front. (You won't find that application in the manual, but Email me if you want to know how it's done). This tool is incredibly accurate. I put it to a tough test immediately. I made the back of a sofa that consisted of a rectangle, with the 4 corners consisting of pieces cut and dowelled at 45 degrees, and 12 slats between the top and the bottom. Everything had to be perfect to pull this off. To top things off, I was working with a wood that had become slightly twisted, so I was depending on the doweling and clamp-up to pull the twist out. WHAT a job it did--first time I used it. The corners all perfectly matched, the slats all perfectly spaced--so much in fact that had I joined the pieces directly together without the slats, the 12 slat holes were in perfect alignment to one another. And everything was so fast, thanks to the spacer accessory which allows one to set the distance between dowel holes with perfection. I look at my finished product--an entire sofa with over 100 dowels, each having to be exactly in the right place, all of the twists in the wood pulled out. Not a screw in the whole thing. Before, I would have made this using screws and plugs, which would not have been as aesthetically appealing, and would have taken longer. The Dowelmax is really fast using the dowel spacer accessory: you set it once and no need to mark each individual location. I recently used the tool to attach legs to a coffee table. The Dowel-it cannot even attempt this task. With the Dowelmax, 4 legs were glued in place, perfectly, in about 40 minutes. I can't imagine doing this any faster with any other tool. I've used it to make picture and mirror frames, creating perfect 45-degree hidden joints. There's another feature of this tool, seldom mentioned in the literature or in other reviews, that sets it apart. The tool accomodates a 9.7 mm drill bit, which comes with the tool. A 3/8" dowel is 9.52 mm. So, your dowel hole is ever so slightly larger than the dowel. That extra 0.2 mm makes all of the difference. If you have ever used a dowel tool, you will know what I am talking about. When the fit is exact, as with other tools, your glue has no place to go. As you tap in your dowel, the glue gets tapped in, too, filling up the bottom of your dowel hole and ultimately obstructing dowel entry. With the Dowelmax, that extra glue slides up the sides of your dowel, giving complete coverage and a perfect seal. The Dowelmax comes with fluted dowels, meaning the dowels have grooves that run the length of the dowel. The glue squeezes out through these flutes. These dowels are much superior to spiral dowels, where the glue has to navigate a spiral around the dowel--and hardly ever does it very well. Bottom line: dowels go in easy, and you are not stuck tapping madly with a mallet, trying to get your dowel to a sufficient depth while your glue is drying. This speeds up the whole operation, and is a really necessary feature when you are dealing with a long row of dowels and don't have time to mess around. You can get replacement 9.7 mm bits through OMS tool company (maker of Dowelmax), or you can buy them off of [...] in a 3-pack. The tool does require some learning, but either the manual or the CD are perfectly adequate for learning how to use it. Once you grasp the principle, the tool seems almost intuitive. I haven't used the manual now in over a year. The Dowelmax comes with a host of accessories that allow you to put dowels in places that are unimaginable with a self-centering jig. Incredibly flexible tool. BIG question: is it worth the money? I can only tell you my opinion, based on my experience. It is one of the most-used tools I have. Absolutely essential for chairs, and have used it for numerous applications, including putting legs on tables and joining complicated pattern pieces on tabletops. It easily replaces a pocket joiner and a biscuit joiner, and simply cannot be beat for speed or precision. If you have been mortizing and tennoning, chances are you can get an equally secure joint much faster using this tool and multiple rows of dowels, in a lot less time. You may be looking at the piece and thinking why you should pay so much for what seems to be a tiny, non-motorized tool. The answer of me is simply in what it does. It may not have a motor, but functionally, it does things that could only be done by a multiplicity of motorized tools, results in better finished pieces, and saves a lot of time. I suggest also that you buy the expansible fluted dowels that come with the jig, which are also available on [...] through OMS Tool company (the maker of the jig) or through other outlets like Woodworker's Supply or Rocklers. They go in snugly but without force, and expand into the dowel hole, locking in quickly. After one minute, there's no removing them--though with good clamps, you can still squeeze your pieces together. A cheap glue bottle with an application tip for dowels is also a real time-saver. Together with the expansible dowels, you can achieve secure joints by applying glue only to the hole; no need for additional application to the expansible dowel. To sum up: Doweling is a precision operation, very intolerant of error. The Dowelmax is the only tool up to the job, in my opinion, and its flexibility to handle many doweling operations is unsurpassed. If you are like me, you will find yourself using this tool all of the time. It will greatly expand your woodworking capabilities, creates more aesthetically pleasing pieces, and saves a bundle of time. I wouldn't do woodworking without it now. It's definitely a "must-have".

I'm always surprised when people write a review after only having something a day or two. For a product like this, I think it's a better policy to actually use it to build some projects, and review it a few months down the line to see if buyer's remorse has set in. I watched the instruction videos on the internet before I received my dowelmax, and I was able to use the jig right out of the box without any issues. I found the process to be fairly intuitive, with results that were (and continue to be) excellent. I love all the accessories that come with the kit. The accessories allow you to always find a way to use dowel joinery for your project in creative, highly accurate, repeatable ways. You'll enjoy great fit and finish on the completed joints. I used the dowelmax to make a garden bench with approximately 100 dowels. Every joint lined up perfectly without any mistakes. I'm very pleased with the results. Strong, tight joints that are indistinguishable from mortise and tenon joints. This is a good product. So, after several months of ownership, my opinion is this: I do not regret having purchased a dowelmax. It lives up to it's reviews. I often read reviews of other products where the reviewers seem to wish that a tool was made out of better materials and was more accurate, etc. The problem seems to be that people are reluctant to pay the extra expense for something like a dowelmax that actually provides the fit, finish and results of a first-rate tool. I believe it was Benjamin Franklin who said "The bitterness of poor quality remains long after the sweetness of lower price is forgotten." Don't make the mistake of buying poor quality. Get your wallet out and get a dowelmax.

This is hands down the best doweling jig I have ever used. Incredibly well machined. Cleverly designed. All metal, beautiful combination of steel and brass. It feels in hands like WWII bolt action rifle, you can depend on it. It produces results so precise gage blocks will not catch the wood edges when sliding over them. Joint lines become invisible after 1-2 passes in a drum sander, especially in bookmatched wood you cannot tell it was dowelmaxed together. Joints produced are very strong. I can argue stronger than mortises. And the jig is so easy to use, dramatically faster than tenoning, by use frequency it already replaced the mortise/tenon machines, finger joints, domino machines in the shop. We are planning to buy two kits. While the price higher my advice is cry once and never look back. Cheap is expensive. Also, these are made in Canada, you will be supporting a Canadian business.

I don't do a lot of reviews, but Dowelmax definitely deserves another 5 star! Not sure how I came across it but after research and youtube videos, it looked like the way to go. I had high expectations after reading the amazon reviews. I recently got the dowelmax and was up and running in no time. I've only tested it once on a broken tv tray, but it's easy to see that it will work flawlessly on whatever comes along. Faces lined up perfectly. I used it join 1x2's in a butt joint frame. The dowels made the frame square up nicely and the joints are strong. I'm very handy but more of a low level intermediate woodworker. I like to design and build cool furniture but don't want to spend the time on elaborate joints if they can be made more easily. My time is too limited to master and use mortise and tenon etc. Perhaps some woodworker elitist will scoff at dowels, but for me it's just fine. I now have a new bisquit joiner that i'm not sure what to do with, as this tool seems like a total replacement for it. In the past I used pocket holes a lot but they are far inferior and weaker as well. Guess I won't be using them much either. One last thing. I have an outdoor covered patio which I build stuff on. In the winter, especially with short days, I'm left twiddling my thumbs as night falls, wishing I had a nice lit shop where I could grind away with power tools while not waking the family. Alas I don't...But I do have a laundry room! I can do cuts by day and then drill and dowel at night in this room. A drill is about the noisiest tool I can use inside without disturbing sleepers. So dowelmax is going to be great for my predicament. The older I get the more I realize that you get what you pay for. Dowelmax has quality written all over it. One will see that after one use. The available tools for woodworking are endless. Many are nice and on the wish list, but this tool is a must have for sure.

I have used Domino extensively and found it very good with few annoyances. First, there are three selection for Mortise size and it does not have variable spacing. I found this to be an issue as the loose tenons were very tight when doing dry fitting. If you go one size wider then it was too loose. This required some sanding of Dominos! Secondly, occasionally while drilling, Domino may shift ever so slightly. This is not Domino bashing but an honest review. I had to sell Domino ,not because of few short comings but rather I needed money.... Anyways, being a hobbyist, I need some other tool to do the joinery. Doing the traditional Mortise and tenons was to time consuming plus I do not have the skills to do those joints. I do use Pocket Screws which I find excellent but not very sturdy. After reading the reviews, I purchased Dowelmax, used it on one project and found it outstanding! The accuracy is better than Domino and it is very easy to use. 12/05/2011 Edit OK here is an update after few uses. When using the smaller add-on for the 1/4", a spacer wood is required when doing drills on the face of a board; a small inconvenience but will not lower the rating from 5 star. For such a fine machined piece of Engineering, it is a shame that it does not come with a nice container (specially at this price tag)! 02/11/2012 This could be an issue with the Dowel sizes and not the jig itself. The dowels fit nice and snugly with glue applied. However, when dry fitting, the dowels are too loose and makes DRy fitting experience not a pleasant one. 12/13/2012 One annoying thing is the screws keeps getting loose with vibration. Not the ones that clamp the wood, but the ones that hold the spaces. Perhaps the thumb screws needs to be replaced with some hex nuts. You need to keep tightening it quite frequently. If you forget, the holes gets misaligned and the two boards will not flush fit. Still a great product but I will reduce the rating to 4.5

I purchased the Dowelmax, along with the optional 1/4" guides, almost three years ago. I wanted to have some significant experience with the jig before writing a review so that my words could be backed with a little credibility. In a nutshell: this jig does what it promises. It is easy to learn, easy to use, absolutely accurate and repeatable, and delivers quality joinery quickly and efficiently. It's a superbly designed and equally well-constructed piece of equipment that becomes intuitive after only a few uses. To those naysayers who compare the Dowelmax to lesser-quality doweling jigs, I contend that they're making the wrong comparison. The cheaper doweling jigs out there are not even in the same category and deliver nowhere close to the same kind of performance as Dowelmax. If you want to make a fair evaluation, put Dowelmax side-by-side with a Festool Domino. I remember being told that when you buy an expensive tool, you cry once; but when you buy a cheap tool, you cry every time you need to use it. As soon as you take Dowelmax out of the box you realize you're holding a solid, precision tool. No tears here at all.

This jig is top shelf! Recently, I had need to join an apron to the legs of a desk I was building as a birthday gift for my neice. I have a nice mortise machine and tenon jig, but speed and accuracy was a big factor. After reading all the glowing reviews, I decided to plunk down the money and get the Dowelmax. Brother, am I in love with this thing or what? Once I got use to orienting the jig, I simply breezed through this project. My wife was totally amazed at how fast I went from a pile of wood to very nice little study desk. Mortise and tenon joints would have taken forever, compared to the Dowelmax. Also, with all the steps involved in mortise and tenon, plus how easy it is for me to make small mistakes that compound, I question the final quality of the joints I would have produced. The Dowelmax joints were dead on the money; no exceptions. As stated by previous reviewers, this tool is extremely well made. In fact this tool is OVER engineered. Even where plastic might have been acceptable, you will only find finely machined metal parts. Many surfaces have a near mirror finish. I served as a machinist in the Air Force, and am really blown away by the quality of this tool. This is such a fine tool, that I'm going to have to build a proper box to house it. No way this is getting tossed into some drawer in my shop. Chalk up another 5 star rating for the Dowelmax!

I can't help but think the 5 star ratings are heavily influenced by two psychological factors: a) the device is extremely well machined - almost a work of art -- you just like to handle it; and b) I spent a fortune on this darn thing….it better be 5 stars. I give it 4 stars only because the design limits some of it's utility AND affects how you use it, or should use it. I'm definitely affected by "a" and "b" above but in terms of pure functionality and price, I give it 4 stars. There might be a temptation to think this is bam-bam, quick knock out a couple of joints and be finished in 5 minutes. It takes a bit of use with this thing to get the hang of it. My advice is BE SURE to practice a bit on some "scrap" or garage projects before moving on to anything of the fine furniture variety. For example, this is aluminum and if you crank too hard on the tightening knobs you will definitely induce some flex in the device (about 1/32" or more). Just tighten the knobs barely enough to keep the jig still. Second, this is a very high precision form of joinery even if it seems that it isn't. The dowels are a very tight fit and being only 1/64" off in any direction could affect the quality, even the utility of your connection. As another example, the instructions advise you to reference from ONE end of a board. Say you want to drill dowel holes at each end (end grain) of a board like the side of a drawer. The temptation (and my first mistake) was to drill 3 holes at each end, using EACH end as the reference instead of using the spacer rod and using only ONE end as the reference for all the holes. Then I made another mistake (see below) which destroyed the drawer side. No problem you say? I'll just cut another one. If your new drawer side isn't EXACTLY the same dimensions as the first one, the holes on one half of your board end will not mate up with the drawer front. If you reference from just one end and use the spacer rod to get to the other end, you could deal with these slight imperfections, so don't do what I did. Yes, this was my fault, not the device, but the fact that you cannot see any reference marks (you can't align to a specific mark or spot for drilling-- only to a reference edge some distance from a mark or spot -- the device completely obscures the actual spot where the holes will be drilled. The last thing to note, and the reason I messed up my first board, was not paying close attention to the length of the dowel and the depth of the holes. If your holes end up being not deep enough and you start gluing things up, you're in trouble even if you don't yet realize it (but you will). Forget about removing a recently glued dowel if this happens. Even 3-5 minutes after implanting them with yellow glue, they are there to stay. You'll break the dowel before removing them. So in summary, even though this is a relatively easy system (with some practice) it still demands quite a bit of precision in milling your parts to exact dimensions (even 1/32" can have an effect), planning ahead (dowel length and hole depth, and finally dry fit everything if you can. Would I purchase this again? It's a very very nice device, don't get me wrong. It's REALLY expensive for what it does. You can make your own basic alignment jig and use Veritas bushings for about 1/10th the cost or so. Yea, but this one is all ready to go, right? Well, yes, but It STILL requires a bit of fiddling to get this thing configured right each time etc. Would I purchase it again? At this price, not sure. On the fence. Would I sell it for what I paid for it? Hmmmm not just yet, but maybe call me in a year.