What are wooden dowels used for?

Dowels are used for making strong, accurate joints in wood.

They are thicker and sturdier than nails or screws and therefore less prone to breakage.

They provide a stronger joint than just using glue as they insert into both the pieces of wood being joined together. This means they cannot easily snap apart.

They are regularly used in the construction of a huge number of wooden household items and pieces of furniture, including picture and door frames...

...attaching table and chair legs...

...building cabinets...

...and constructing wooden shelves and racks.

Why are dowels so suitable for joinery?

Using dowels eliminates the need to use nails or screws.

Joints made with dowels cannot slip and, when constructed accurately, are guaranteed to be neat.

For more information, see How to accurately align dowel joints.

Other uses of dowels

Dowels are used in woodworking for a variety of purposes other than jointing.

They can be used to repair stripped screw holes. These are holes that have lost their thread and will no longer hold a screw.

In toy-making, dowels are perfect for axles in toy vehicles.

Amateur fletchers use dowel rods to make arrows.

Gymnastics grips are often reinforced with dowels, which rest between the gymnast's fingers and the gymnastic equipment to prevent blistering.

Dowels can be seeded with spores, then hammered into treated logs to create home fungus farms.