"Phil Kangas" wrote in message
...

"Gunner Asch" wrote in message
...
On Sun, 8 Apr 2012 10:54:16 -0400, "Phil Kangas"
wrote:


"Gunner Asch" wrote in
message
...
On Thu, 5 Apr 2012 16:42:55 +0000 (UTC), James
Waldby
wrote:

On Thu, 05 Apr 2012 08:25:49 -0700, Bob La Londe
wrote:
On Apr 4, 10:09 pm, Bob La Londe wrote:
If you needed to put a hemispherical end on a
bunch of 1/4" stainless
dowels how would you tackle it? Say 400, give
or take.

No. They don't need to be terribly accurate.
This is just to make the
non press fit end of alignment pins a little
faster to start. They do
need to be pretty and smooth though.
[Snip list of rounding methods]

I don't see a good reason to round the ends for
that purpose. A
chamfered or conical end would be easier to cut
with good finish
than a hemisphere, and probably better as an
insertion aid.

Indeed. Most of the guys sticking in dowel pins
or cleaning up the ends
on 12' bar stock simply make em pointed to some
degree or another

Gunner

Chamfered or conical is _not_ smooth! pdk


Correct. And if its simply to aid in getting the dowel pin started..who
cares if its "smooth"?

Gunner

Bob LaLonde, the OP, that's who !!!!

In this case smooth...ish would be nice. It's a pin for something that is
assembled and disassembled perhaps dozens of times per hour during normal
use. Wear would be minimal, but cumulative. After much consideration I
decided a ground and polished lathe bit was the best option for what I want
to do. I tried it, and it actually works much faster than I thought it
would.