Miller Dowels 1X Dowel Pins 2 3/4" Long 3/8" Diameter Cap Birch (Bag 40)

One of the greatest inventions of the last 100 years. Even with modest-to-good skills, you can look like (and be) a real pro. So easy to use, with awesome results. You will reorder often. Guaranteed!

We had a hardwood stair tread where the leading edge snapped off. Instead of trying to replace it, I looked up repairing it (correctly!) and found Tommy Silva's video (from Ask This Old House). He used the Miller Tru-Fit drill bit and these stepped dowels to repair a tread to its original form and strength.The bit requires a 1/2 inch drill and it worked as advertised with these stepped dowels. My broken stair tread is as good as new, and I saved many hundreds of dollars vs having a carpenter replace the entire tread!

I finally tried these Miller Dowel Pins on drawers. I've used them in other applications, shelving mostly, but I hesitated to put them to use on upscale furniture projects even though I had tested these dowels on scrap pieces a long time ago and they worked without a problem. My concern was the length of the hole I had to drill and the probability that the bit would wander out of the side of the wood during the drilling process. When a person has spent hours milling high priced wood the last thing desired is a long ragged hole in the side of the drawer face.But, the dowels worked well. The bit drilled straight and true each time. I held the drawer parts together at 90 degrees with a specialized vice and drilled the holes with a hand held drill. I also followed on line advice and did not put glue on every inch of the dowel plus in the hole. The Miller dowels are designed to hold with glue on only the upper third where the ribs are cut. That saved a lot of problems. In my previous tests I had covered the dowel in glue causing a real mess with installation. By covering the upper area only the speed of assembly was increased. The fit of the dowel all by itself would hold a drawer together. Pretty amazing overall.One problem I encountered was tear out at the top of the hole. I was drilling Baltic birch plywood, and it split out at the top of the hole leaving an unsightly result. I tried adding masking tape but it did not do much good. The defect occurred in about one-quarter of the holes. Fixing this required that I mix sandpaper dust with glue to get a good match on the wood. It worked, for the most part, and the drawers look good. The drawers were lipped so the defect only shows when the drawer is opened and examined closely. From even two feet away there is just a nice looking round dowel end facing out making a pleasant accent to the piece.AD2

These are great for new construction or repair to furniture! They are compressed so they provide more breaking strength than a standard dowel. The stepped profile makes installation easy. And it's easy to leave them a bit above surface and flush cut, making it's own end plug, or drill deeper to leave them below surface and use a separate face plug, for a more invisible repair!

I am a beginner wood worker who decided to make a patio table out of hardwood (maybe more than I could handle?). I started out with screws but it did not have the finished feel I was going for. Then I found the miller dowel. These dowels have been used on all different types of joints for the legs and top of this patio table. I would like to keep it my little secret. The finished product makes me look like an expert but they are so easy to use. Check out the video on youtube. It really is that easy. You do need a decent amount of clamps, a drill, glue, and a good dowel saw. It takes no skill (trust me I have none) for an outstanding look. It is also very fast once you get the hang of it.

I have been using these for years now and they have always been top quality and I could not be more pleased with the results.

re-order of these. Work well and are reasonably priced.

I have used these dowels for years now and I still love them. They work very well, I just wish that there was some more choices in the wood selection. Also, don't freak out if in the package that you get the dowels only have the grooves cut into one part of the dowel instead of two as shown in the photos. I called and asked about this, the photos used are old compared to the current production method.