Mass producing dowels?  chunky ones. 

Well, there’s a pole lathe - rough split blanks and turn them.  Best using green
wood, but other power sources will spin up anything.

You could split the blanks roughly to round, run a drawknife over them (as for a
pole lathe but closer to size)  and then pass them through a dowel plate.

Dowel plate? - make up two or three holes, creeping up on the final size, using
a ‘rough’ size first lets you keep the final size one true, nad some wear and
sharpening of a rough size one doesn’t matter too much.

Already heard about using a rout*r  in a jig, and 
making and using a rounder - maybe in conjunction with something to rotate a
square blank, as in making chair spindles.

That’s probably all the choices covered, apart from whittling - though that’s
essentailly what you’re doing with the drawknife.

You don’t mention the material - is this oak, or softwood?   It may guide the
choice.


The first half dozen are fun.  The last one is enjoyable.  In between just turn
up the music and zone out.


Richard Wilson
Baking bread and teaching the apprentice in Northumberland