Comparison of two devices for assembling furniture on dowels: homemade and factory

The other day I started a correspondence with a hobby colleague and it turned out that he, like me, often connects parts with dowels in his projects. Only I use a homemade additive router to drill the holes for the dowels, and a colleague uses a factory jig.

Homemade filler router. Photo by the author

Furniture conductor. Photos from the channel: https://zen.me/Je7L2

It became interesting to me to compare these two devices. In the correspondence, I asked about the possibilities of the furniture conductor and about the experience of its use. It turned out that their capabilities are largely similar, although there are differences.

Homemade filler router

I already talked about it earlier on the channel, but I will briefly remind you what this device is.

The device of the device is simple - a rectangular plate, which on one side goes flush with the base of the router, and on the opposite side, a corner moves in the grooves.

This corner can be fixed at a specified distance from the center of the cutter and thus set the position for drilling from the plane of the part.

On this site, on both sides of the cutter, a pair of holes are made for the stop pin. These holes are made with a 32 mm pitch. That is, the distance between the centers is 32 mm, including the center of the cutter.

Stoppers can be inserted into these holes on the site so that you can immediately drill from the edge of the part at a known distance or make a series of holes with a pitch of 32 or 64 mm.

In addition to drilling with an emphasis on the stops, you can successfully drill along the markings. For this, a window with an insert of plexiglass is made in the corner movable part. The plexiglass is marked with a risk that goes along the axis of the cutter in the center. This allows you to align the marking line with the marking in the window and drill holes anywhere at a specified distance from the plane.

According to the marking, you can not only drill holes but also make grooves.

Also, with this device, with the corner stop removed, you can drill rows of holes on a plane at any angle to the edge.

Most often I use 8 mm dowels, but there have been projects when holes for 6 mm dowels were needed. The device also made it easy to cope with this task.

Furniture conductor

This jig allows you to drill up to three holes at once with a pitch of 20 mm.
In the set, the conductor has three guide bushings, for sizes 6 8 and 10 mm, and also drills of the corresponding diameters. Each drill has an Allen key stop for adjusting the drilling depth.
The set also includes a guide with a lock of the same diameter as the dowel (3 pieces included). With this guide, you can set the pitch for drilling a series of holes in large parts.

This jig also allows you to make holes for the minifix mount.

The conductor also has cutouts on the body for positioning along the already exposed dowels. This may be required when drilling holes in a plane.

Outcomes

Comparing these two tools, I came to the following conclusions:

1. Both of these tools can be successfully used to connect parts both along the edge and along the plane (G-shaped and T-shaped connection)
2. Homemade filler cannot be done eccentric connection, but a furniture conductor cannot be made grooves in details.
3. Drilling by marking is quite easy to do with a homemade filler router, just mark a line for the center of the hole. With a furniture conductor, this can be done, only the marking lines should be along the edge of the conductor, and not in the center of the hole, and this can create confusion for any complex projects.

To say that one of these tools is better than the other seems to me pointless. Here it will rather be a question of preferences and tasks that the user sets for himself.

Drawings for self-manufacturing of a filler router can be look here.

Furniture conductor can be viewed here

An example of using a conductor in the manufacture of furniture can be viewed at this link.

And for an example of making furniture using a homemade additive, see this link.

Colleague's channel link - MAY DIY

Thanks for reading. I would be glad to have your support in the form of a like and a subscription to the channel. And see other publications on the channel.

Alexander.

P.S. I also invite you to your site.