Did you see this?

http://www.3gcs.com/adcock/free%20pa...ng_needles.htm

Dave

DougVL wrote:
I've been looking for ways to make small dowels. Well, really they'll be
knitting needles and arrows.
I'm still hoping to find a jig design that I like for cutting dowels from
square stock. Until then, I rip squares and plane them fairly close to
round in a long v-block. Knitting needle diameters range from about 1/8
inch to 3/8 inch. Knitting needles would be 8 to 15 inches long. Arrows
have less size variability, about 5/16 to 3/8 inch diameter and 30 inches
long.
Next I want to sand them to accurate diameter, and very smooth. I've looked
into the methods used for centerless grinding similar things made of steel,
but haven't figured out a way to do it at home on wooden parts.
It seems like the smoothest surface will come from sanding with the grain,
though, which is not the way a centerless grinder works.
I've got a drill press with sanding drum and I clamped a v-notched guide
next to the drum and tried sanding that way, rotating and pushing the wood
shaft between the drum and guide notch. But it failed miserably, probably
because I seem to need infeed and outfeed guides to hold the stock straight
and steady. The initial trial was with strips of bamboo which I split and
then planed to approximately 1/4 inch in diameter. The bamboo isn't
completely straight, so as I turned my end, the rest wiggles around. It
seems like that shouldn't matter with the v-block holding the workpiece at a
constant distance from the sanding drum, but it sure didn't work.

Does anyone know how dowels are sanded in large quantity? I mean what kind
of machinery and what shapes of abrasive "cutter" do they use?
As well as the sanding drum, I also have 1x42 and 2x48 inch belt
sander/grinders that I could try making guide fixtures for. If I knew what
to do!

If I can find a good way to do this, I'll take some pictures and write up a
description and put the info on my website for others to see.

Thanks for any help!

--
Doug VanderLaan, K8RFT
http://users.netonecom.net/~swordman/GetThePoint.htm
"Sometimes history doesn't repeat itself. It just yells
'can't you remember anything I've told you?' and lets
fly with a club.
"To be great is to be misunderstood." Ralph Waldo Emerson
-- John W. Cambell Jr.