Cutting holes in the spoilboard - pocket size for 8mm dowel pins?

How To
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I’m planning on cutting holes in my spoilboard to accommodate 8 mm dowels. Thinking about using them for work-piece alignment, etc.

I purchased a few wooden dowels and a few metal dowels from Amazon,and they measure almost exactly 8mm based on my digital calipers.

I will cut some test pockets in scrap wood at different sizes to see which best fits the dowels before cutting my actual spoilboard.

Was going to try 7.9mm, 7.95mm, 8mm, 8.05mm, and 8.1mm to start.

Just wondering if there’s a rule of thumb for sizing pockets like this when the purpose to have a snug fit between two parts?

2

I would start with 0.005inches bigger than your pin. Adjust as needed.

3

To follow up my original questions, I tried cutting the following diameter holes using a 1/4" endmill pocket operation, and then testing with my 8mm dowels:

8.00mm → Too tight
8.05mm → Tight
8.10mm → Perfect fit
8.15mm → Teeny amount of wiggle

Based on the above, I’m going to use 8.07mm diameter holes.

For the record, I was testing the following 8x25mm metal dowel pins:

And the following 8x25mm wooden dowels:

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4

For anything that’s supposed to be PG I’ve managed with exact size holes and if they get stuck I have pliers with soft jaws for them.

5

One other option is to use internally threaded dowel pins then you can put a bolt in to extract them when they get stuck

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