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.

However, some challenges are far more basic.  Take a look at the photos below. Can you see the problem?  Here I am making some inexpensive laundry racks for a local retailer.   The obvious problems are space, efficiency and too many similar parts.  You can see I have a “forest” of dowels and no place to glue them up.   And of course the nature of circular, long, skinny dowels makes them inherently difficult to stack, glue and assemble.

So why is this relevant?  Well, typically these kinds of problems occur with every project you make, but nobody spends much time taking about them because they are boring and don’t sell tools.  Solving these problems is essential if you want to reduce mistakes and build faster.  In my shop, I solve these kinds of issues in two ways: jigs & fixtures and large work surfaces.  Forget the magnificent maple-topped work bench with expensive vices, bench dogs, and hold downs.  What you need are some big flat worktops like this bench design from Marc Spagnuolo.  I made one similar to this but a little larger and with casters so I can move it around.  Works great!

Make it "shaker" style (A).  A plain door doesn’t mean it’s inferior.  If you don’t need a decorative profile on the door frame, you can simply make a groove for the panel and then use any convenient method to join the frame parts – dowels, bridle (slip) joints, stub tenon & groove, biscuits, etc.  When making doweled or biscuited joints, the panel groove in the stiles should stop short of the ends so that it doesn’t show.

Use applied moldings (B). You can make small moldings using inexpensive router bits, miter them, and then glue them to the frame (take care not to get glue on the panel).  Larger moldings can be rabbeted and then applied so that they sit "proud" of the frame (a Bolection molding.)

Make a mason’s miter (C). This is a trickier joint to make, but looks  great and allows you to use a wide variety of inexpensive router bits.  Mill a decorative profile on the inside edges of the frame parts.  Use a table saw to make  45 degree cuts through the decorative profile where the rails and stiles meet and then remove the profile on the stiles where the rails join. Join and groove as before.

Make two auxiliary fences about 6" tall x 15" long (flat plywood or MDF is perfect for this) and join them together with countersunk carriage bolts fitted through slightly oversized holes to allow about 1/8" of movement.  Make a 4" long x 1/2" x 1/2" alignment pin from solid wood.  Set up your table saw’s dado cutter to cut a 1/2" x 1/2" notch in the front fence and then glue the pin into the notch (it should make a snug fit.)  Screw the fence assembly to your miter gauge so that there is a 1/2" gap between the registration pin and the dado cutter (the pin is to the right of the cutter).  Tighten up the wing nuts on the carriage bolts and make some test cuts to ensure the jig is cutting accurately – if the joints are too tight, loosen the wing nuts and tap the front fence to the left to cut smaller fingers. Conversely, moving the fence to the right will make the joint tighter.

When using the jig, you will typically start cutting from the top edge of the drawer side as shown by the arrows in the diagram above.  The first cut will leave a full finger and the last cut may leave a partial finger or gap depending on the size of the sides and the precision of your jig and dado cutter – normally you cannot cut precisely 1/2" fingers so the last gap or finger will be smaller than the rest.  To cut the matching parts you must use the leading edge of the first piece you cut as a spacer for the leading edge of the matching piece – the first cut in the matching piece will then be a full size gap.  It is important to use a backer block to prevent tear-out, and to renew the block every few cuts.

Option 1 Buy planed stock. There is plenty of wood available that has already been planed smooth, but unfortunately not much of it is flat. Wood intended for house construction is often not the right species of wood and is not dry enough. Wood products sold as project wood or project panels (sometimes sold simply as shelves) in home centers can be quite good quality, and are suitable for making furniture (A). Take a straight edge with you and check that the boards are flat. Cupping or twisting of the board face is a much more serious defect than crook along the edge or a lengthwise bow because you can’t correct the cup or twist without reducing the thickness of the board. Long boards will often clamp flat or can be cut into smaller sections that are flat.

Option 2 Use a hand plane. Hand planes are a joy to use. They must be kept very sharp, and you need to have a solid, flat surface to work on. Use a good straight-edge to check your progress. Start by looking, not doing – put the board on your bench and look to see where the high spots are. Winding sticks (twin straight sticks perched on each end of the board) can help you to see if the board is twisted (B). Joint the first face of the board flat by scrubbing diagonally across the board to knock down the high spots (C), then smooth lengthwise (D). Check your progress frequently with a straight-edge or by flipping it over on your bench (assuming your bench is flat!) Use a marking gauge (or block of wood with a pencil) to mark the final thickness on the edges and ends of the board. Scrub diagonally to get the board flat and then smooth lengthwise down to your gauged thickness lines.

Option 3 Use a hand plane to joint the board and a planer to thickness it. For larger projects (or just to save a lot of time) flatten the first face of your board with a hand plane and then thickness it with a planer. You don’t need to get the jointed face smooth, just flat. The planer handles the rest (E).