Why mechanical & manufacturing engineering should start using retractable dowels pins.

Hey guys,

it's Rick at Elijah Tooling.

Hey for all you mechanical and manufacturing engineers out there, I want to talk to you about dowel pins.

Ah exciting touch subject.

Two minutes all right.

Okay, today we want to talk about our retractable dowel pin.

And the reality is: we talked about this thing in a lot of our videos, but I haven't talked about it specifically.

So first of all, one thing I want you to know is that it works with the ZipBushings™, so we can screw it in and out.

Of course, the ZipBushings™ is used for shoulder screws, dowels screws.

So, you can see I screwed it in and out of the ZipBushings™.

And that's one of the type of holes in this table over here.

But, we've got the dowel and it goes into the ZipBushings™ to the right!

So, dowel dowel.

What's the point? Why do you want to use this, versus this?

So, I'm going to come over here on the table and I can think of a couple of really good reasons to do this.

One: is that the Xzertz™. We call it as Xzertz™ retractable dowel pin.

You can adjust the height of it, to exactly what you want.

If you've got a dowel, it's a fixed length.

So, unless you got the right length.

So, if you've gone all over the shop looking for your dowel pin and this is now what you got.

So, let's just use this block for an example, you know we're going to load this block, we could do it like that and that's kind of, that's probably not the right way to do it.

But, if we manage it by this way, bring it down, we kind of find it, and then inevitably what happens is: with a long pin like that it gets bound up.

It's easy for a pin to bind, and then you can't get it out of there.

Can't get the part off.

So, I want to use the Xzertz™.

That's a little bit different because now all we got to do is slide our plate over.

Which by the way, is another advantage of this product: it's not sticking up.

Slide our plate over, pull the dowel up.

Oh, look at that! Located.

Now we just located one hole, but you’re going to locate two.

What we've got is a precisely made dowel pin, that has a thread on the bottom of it.

And this allows you to move the pin up and down, easily.

So, why buy this?

Let's go back to that again.

So, the cost between these two isn't that great, but this one is significantly easier to use.

Easier to manage, always in the plate.

So, that's another thing that's really cool about it, is because it can be flush mounted into the plate.

We can just leave it, in there. We don't have to go searching around for it.

And then lastly, depending on your situation you may be using vacuum we've got an o-ring around the outside, to hold a vacuum.

So next time you're thinking about dowel pins, consider this one.

All right.

See you, next time guys,

-Rick Miller

CEO & Founder of Elijah Tooling