Metric sized round dowel in Australia

[Dukayork]

Does anyone know how to get metric sized round dowel in Australia? I bought a set of Festool Forstner bits with sizes 15mm to 35mm in steps of 5mm thinking it would be easy to get dowel to match, but I can only find metricated imperial sizes (16, 19, 22mm etc).

Does anyone know a manufacturer or importer of dowel in those sizes?

I've tried Porta, they weren't interested. Next step is to start ring every balustrade company in Australia - so I'm looking for a shortcut!  [smile]

 

[aloysius]

Have you considered making your own?  Lee Valley once made (I presume they still do) a drill-driven dowel rounding device, allowing machine-ripped squares to be accurately rounded dimensionally.  For that extra modicum of accuracy there's also Lie Nielsen's dowel plates/s (also presumably still available), a rather crude but apparently effective device for compressing & final dimensioning dowel rod.

Although available in a fairly limited range of sizes, I believe there's both metric & medieval sizings available.  There's no harm in asking whether accurately dimensioned custom sizes are available.  Or you could again make your own.  Slowly & carefully with quality drill/s & files in soft, malleable & workable mild steel that can be subsequently forged, tempered & hardened as required by a local smith or foundry.

Think of the money you'd save by producing your own product by the meter in the precise species & dimensional specifications you need.
http://www.leevalley.com/us/wood/page.aspx?p=42331&cat=1,180,42288
https://www.lie-nielsen.com/product/dowel-plates-dowel-plate-metric-

Upon further investigation it appears the former is only applicable to the "old" measures.  This is actually advantageous:  prep your ripped squares to the closest (slightly larger) medieval measure for dimensionally stable storage, & bang the odd length through the metric dowel plate as & when required to produce the precision final diameters you need.

 

[jimbo51]

Neither of the products you mention nor the Woodpecker dowel maker go even as big as 20 mm and none make a 15 mm dowel. On the larger end of the scale, a 30-35 mm homemade dowel plate would not be a trivial undertaking. A machine shop could make a plate, but hammering a long dowel without breaking might be difficult depending on the wood species.

 

[Dukayork]

Thanks for the info guys