re: Axles

Yeah, Nathan. The prices are pretty high. As soon as I tried mine, I jumped on eBay and immediately got the even sixteenth cutters, and even back then, they weren't cheap, but I figured they weren't going to get any cheaper, either.

The veritas dowel cutters work ok, but it's easier to get a dowel that isn't completely straight if you're not careful. Having the guide on the Stanley so the raw stock goes in straight does make a difference. And both are super-sensitive to setup. On the Stanley, you need to skew the blade within the cutter a hair to get the cleanest cuts.

All that said, I probably won't ever sell mine. I find myself pulling it out to make a handful of dowels a few times per year, and I really like being able to crank out some dowels from whatever wood I want, rather than being stuck with the one or two species offered at the store. And I find I don't really miss the odd sixteenths, since I can always sand a dowel down by a sixteenth pretty quickly on the lathe if I need an odd size.