[Steve106]

My brother has recently started a home business that manufactures and sells a product that requires tons of 1/4 inch by 2 inch pegs. He is currently buying 1/4 dowels and cutting them down to create the 2 inch pegs. The problem is, he needs both ends of the pegs to be real clean (no splintering or rough edges). Consequently, he has been sanding the sides of each and every peg by hand. It only takes like 15-20 seconds a peg, but after 500-1000 pegs it is getting kinda ridiculous and tedious.

I was wondering if anyone here may be able to think of a better, more efficient way of sanding all these ends? Any Do It Yourself ideas out there?

Help is greatly appreciated! Sorry it was kinda long-winded : )

-Steve

p.s. if anyone thinks they may be able/want to help with production, let us know! Send me a pm

 

[TonyM]

dowels

I use a hand held-pencil sharpener, the type with the blade that peels off wood. Works great.
TonyM

 

[Dave Paine]

Did you do an internet search?

I have seen a number of different methods.

This is Woodgears pencil sharpener method.

http://woodgears.ca/dowel/making.html

FYI, you cannot send or receive Private Messages until you have made 25 posts.

 

[TimPa]

make a spinning sanding cup. drill press maybe. dremel has sanding (grinding) type cups I think. end of larger dowel bowled out and sandpaper glued in?!? spin in drill press chuck.

 

[Gary Beasley]

What is he using to cut them off? I could use my scroll saw to cut stuff like that and get ultra smooth end but it may not be practical from a production standpoint. I've seen devices that use sharp blades to shave mitered corners, maybe you can find something like that.

 

[Thalweg]

How ahout putting a whole bunch of them in some sort of rock tumbler/polisher/vibrator? Maybe with some sand.

 

[TomC]

I don't think you are going to improve on a method of less than 20 seconds. As has already been mentioned you need a way to cut to eliminate the need for sanding each piece.
Tom

 

[mdntrdr]

We are just guessing here until we know exactly what the finished pieces need to be. Do they need to have a crisp 90 deg, or can they have a rounded/beveled edge? :huh:

 

[Steve106]

First off, thank you all for all your responses. I really appreciate the discussion and all the helpful advice and ideas.

Some more info that may be helpful, the product we are building is a rack that uses the 1/4 inch x 2inch pegs to hang things from. The outer ends of the pegs face forward and are very visible. Accordingly, a 90 degree end is not necessary but the closer it is to 90 degrees the better it looks.

The pencil sharpener idea is interesting and I will definitely give it a try. I feel like it cant cut down on time that much though. The tumbler idea is great because it would allow me to do a ton of pegs at once, this may be much more efficient. I am going to look more into this one.

Dave- thanks for the heads-up about the minimum posts.

We just tried using a scroll saw and unfortunately the ends will still need a little touching up. Any other recommendations, ideas, and/or suggestions that would allow us to more efficiently prepare these pegs? Ideally, a method or machine that could allow us to do a bulk amount at one time or a saw or cutting method that would eliminate the need for us to even have to sand at all.

Thanks again to everyone who has chimed in. Again, greatly appreciated!

-Steve

 

[FrankC]

You could try a variation on zero clearance, drill a 1/4" hole lengthways through a block of wood, make a square cut into it 2" from one end just past the hole.

Push the dowel through the hole to line up with the end that has the cut, make the cuts continuing to push the dowel through the block.