: Hi Eric, I've got a similar plan. Unfortunately I don't have a lathe I'm
: going to round it down with a block plane - like I did with my paddle and
: then run it through one of these pencil sharpener tools; I have the one in
: the top right corner of this picture. I'm not sure how it will do on the
: Spruce end grain but... I'll find out. I have two styles of plug cutter
: that I might try too.

: A lathe sounds like a lot more fun.

Chip, on my last boat I had to screw my walnut shear strips to the forms thinking later I would use a plug cutter to cut walnut dots and glue in the later drilled out screw holes heads. The walnut plugs being face grained would conceal the holes almost perfectly. The problem was my set of plug cutters burned the walnut plugs I tried to cut. I know this can work because a fellow worker use to come over to me and have me try to find the hole he had filled with a plug cut from the face grain wood he was using. I wish now I had paid more attention to the plug cutter he was using. Using a dowel dot with the end grain would show up darker when it was finished. This guy still lives in town so I think I will pay him a visit and see what I can find out about his techniques.

John