cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/190570
Doing it by hand with sandpaper is a nonstarter.
Also I don’t have a lathe :-/
If they’re fairly short, you could make a v block jig and drive it with a drill, and use a chisel on the side you want to round over. There’s a vid/gif I saw recently of a gentleman doing it to make the dowels themselves after knocking the corners down with a hand plane
A 1/2" dowel might fit in the shank of a standard hand drill… If so, I’d use the dowel in the hand drill and would round off the other end against a belt or oscillating sander, basically.
This works great - I’ve done it by chucking the dowels in my drill and then just holding them against a stationary belt sander for like 2 seconds per end, makes perfect rounded ends everytime!
