Lately, I have been making a lot of projects using birch hardwood dowels: laundry racks, quilt racks, quilt ladders, etc. Some woodworkers join these dowels using screws (bad!) and some will make a hole the same diameter as the dowel and try to get a tight fit (messy and difficult – especially when the dowels are rarely perfectly circular or uniform in diameter.) I simply end-drill the dowels and fit a compressed hardwood dowel pin. This is quick, easy and reliable.
Now, clearly you would have a hard time doing this with a hand drill. I use a small, inexpensive tabletop drill press and a vise meant for drilling pen blanks (you can get one here). To accommodate long dowels you need to either use a floor standing drill press or mount your tabletop drill press up high and flip the base around so you have enough clearance below the bit. Most presses have a hole centered in the table that will allow you to push the dowel though. I have found this system works well for dowels up the 3/4” diameter and 4’ long.
