On impulse I bought a Lidl electric pencil sharpener (£4.99) a few
months ago and found it is absolutely useless for sharpening pencils.
However, just now I was filling in dowel holes with plain dowel* (I
glue in a 10mm length, wait for glue to dry, then sand smooth) and I
remembered the sharpener! This has proved ideal for chamfering off the
end of the dowel a tad. Previously I was using a file. So I bung the
dowel stick in the sharpener for only 1 or 2 seconds, cut off the
length required, apply glue and tap the piece home.

Another useless Lidl purchase that turns out good in the end: Last
November (approx) Lidl had a dowel jig, consisting of a plastic holder
and three guide bushes, 6mm, 8mm and 10mm. Again, useless in practice,
but the other day I needed to drill some dowel holes where the
Wolfcraft jig wasn't appropriate. So I took two of the bushes from the
Lidl thing, drilled two 16mm holes in a piece of wood and hammered the
bushes in. They are a really snug fit. Although I only had one of each
size, I've just placed the 6mm and 8mm bushes about 40mm apart, so
instead of a row of 8mm I have alternately 8mm, 6mm, 8mm etc.

Perfect!

MM

* The plain dowel is slightly oversize, i.e. 9mm rather than 8mm of
the fluted dowel pegs. This makes for a snug fit, but you have to
'introduce' the dowel into the 8mm hole before hammering it in, hence
the chamfer needed.