This is a good dowel board but it requires a few different things to work properly: 1. Material preparation is key. If you want larger plate sizes, you'll want your blank to be a much narrower size. On the other hand, if you want a medium or smaller dowel in a panel, you can just cut out a square blank to fit large holes and shrink it about 6 times, which works great.2. Stable base/platform. I built the platform from a 6" solid piece of pine scrap I had laying around and machined a slot to allow the board to sit flush and also machined a full through slot under the board holes. If you have a suitable joiners bench with bench holes you can just put these over it, assuming the plate is attached.For me, holding the pins with one hand and tapping with the other has greatly improved the straightness.Quality has increased from 30% to over 85% just by making this change made to my technique. Would buy again.