Here’s an easy way to make custom-sized dowels on a lathe using squared stock that’s too small to hold with a spur or jawed drive chuck. Just remove the chuck, and use the Morse taper in the drive spindle as a jam chuck of sorts. (A #2 Morse taper will snugly accommodate a 5/8"-square blank.) Push one end of a wannabe dowel into the tapered recess, center other end on the tailstock, and turn.
—Mikey Panicky, Ventura, California
