Remove sheered alignment dowel

[MrWhoopee]

I find the comments regarding the hardness of dowel pins interesting. Nearly all of the dowels I have worked with were hard, really hard. Like this:

Black-Oxide 1144 Carbon Steel

1/4" Dia.
3/16" Dia.
1/8" Dia.
Lg.	Dia. Tolerance	Min. Hardness	Breaking Strength, lbs.	Specifications Met	Pkg. Qty.		Pkg.
3/8"	0.0001" to 0.0003"	Rockwell C60	2,600	ASME B18.8.2	25	98381A302	$6.60
1/2"	0.0001" to 0.0003"	Rockwell C60	2,600	ASME B18.8.2	25	98381A304	6.73
5/8"	0.0001" to 0.0003"	Rockwell C60	2,600	ASME B18.8.2	25	98381A306	6.90
3/4"	0.0001" to 0.0003"	Rockwell C60	2,600	ASME B18.8.2	25	98381A308	7.05
1"	0.0001" to 0.0003"	Rockwell C60	2,600	ASME B18.8.2	25	98381A310	8.10
1/2"	0.0001" to 0.0003"	Rockwell C60	5,900	ASME B18.8.2	25	98381A314	7.09
3/4"	0.0001" to 0.0003"	Rockwell C60	5,900	ASME B18.8.2	25	98381A316	7.75
1"	0.0001" to 0.0003"	Rockwell C60	5,900	ASME B18.8.2	25	98381A318	8.40
1 1/4"	0.0001" to 0.0003"	Rockwell C60	5,900	ASME B18.8.2	25	98381A320	9.20
1 1/2"	0.0001" to 0.0003"	Rockwell C60	5,900	ASME B18.8.2	25	98381A322	10.32
1/2"	0.0001" to 0.0003"	Rockwell C60	10,000	ASME B18.8.2	25	98381A326	7.98
3/4"	0.0001" to 0.0003"	Rockwell C60	10,000	ASME B18.8.2	25	98381A328	8.73
1"	0.0001" to 0.0003"	Rockwell C60	10,000	ASME B18.8.2	25	98381A330	9.69
1 1/4"	0.0001" to 0.0003"	Rockwell C60	10,000	ASME B18.8.2	25	98381A332	10.64
1 1/2"	0.0001" to 0.0003"	Rockwell C60	10,000	ASME B18.8.2	25	98381A334	11.67
2"	0.0001" to 0.0003"	Rockwell C60	10,000	ASME B18.8.2	25	98381A336	1

Not amenable to drilling, tapping or welding. I have seen soft dowels, but mostly in stainless and not very frequently.

 

[Technical Ted]

Depends on what the dowel is made out of:

Materials:​

Alloy Steel is the strongest of all steel types. It has high tensile strength and offers excellent resistance to wear, fatigue and galling.
Case Hardened Carbon Steel is less brittle than carbon steel and will not fracture under high stress.

Case hardened dowels which are very common are softer in the middle being made out of low carbon content mild steel.

Ted