YOu use a steel plate, drill a hole the size of rod you want, and then bevel edges on one side. The cone on the one side held you start it into the hole. Then you pull the end sticking out and its strips off the wood and gives you a dowel the diameter of the hole. In theory. YOu obviously have to taper one end of the wood you want to turn into an dowel, to get part of it through the hole to start. Then you have to grab onto it with something, and have enough strenght to pull the wood through.
If you are making short pieces, then a soft rubber, or wood mallet will pound the wood through the sizing plate.
Another way to make sticks is to drill a hole, and file or saw a " U " shaped notch from the edge to the hole, so that the round portion of the hole you drilled forms the bottom of the " U ". Then, you take a square piece of wood stock, and draw it through the upper sides of the U until you work the stick round and its the size of that hole at the bottom. With hickory stock, you should get a rod that has no run-out. Again, you can make a plate with various sized " U's" to make different sized rods.
My late friend tapered my Ramrod for my rifle using this later method, so that the small end would squeeze by the forward lockplate bolt. When he got it down to the size he wanted, he then put it on a belt sander, and finished it off by gently rolling it over a slow speed fine grit sanding belt with his hand. He told me that if he tried to reduct the diameter of the rod with just the sander that I would have had a weaker stick with run-out. Oh, he pulled the stick through the non-beveled side of the sizing plate he made. He told me that since it was already round,and he was just reducing its diameter at one end, pulling it the other way was the way to go. Since I had never done it, and was watching him do this the first time, I just listened and watched. Later, he handed me some scrap square stock to try in the sizing plate so I would know how to do it.
