I have installed dozens of Miller mini-dowels without a drill press. Here is my method:

1. Strap an electric drill to a scrap piece of wood about two feet long and wider than your drill is. Use a band clamp (giant hose clamp) found wherever plumbing supplies are sold to attach the drill firmly to the scrap. Attach other scrap pieces to ensure that your drill’s axis is parallel to the face and edge of the big scrap. Mine are big dowels that seat into concave parts of the drill and are inside the band clamp. Saw the long scrap so that one edge is exactly aligned with the drill’s axis down to the drill chuck. Your drill now looks like it has a big visor on it; half the bill is to one side with the other half missing.

2. Lay the drill assembly on a flat surface, scrap side down and drill side up. Accurately measure the height of the drill’s axis above the flat surface. From this dimension, subtract half the thickness of the stock that you are going to dowel. Using scrap, make two “spacers” that are this dimension high and about two inches wide and two feet long. Their actual size depends on the scale of your project.

3. Lay your project on these two spacers with the side to be doweled down (supported by the spacers). Position one of the spacers so its edge is exactly where you want to dowel. Place your drill (wood side down) with its axis face along this spacer.

4. What you have is a horizontal drill press with the drill axis on the centerline of the stock to be doweled. Any deflection in the vertical direction is well-controlled. You’ll need to be careful to push the drill along the spacer edge so there is no wobble in the horizontal direction. Clamping the project to the spacers and the flat surface helps to keep that assembly stable.

5. For extra strength, toenail the dowels (as in nailing sistered boards). Drill one hole at an angle to the project’s face that you are drilling into (that is, not perpendicular). The next dowel hole should have the opposite angle. Even a slight angle will do the job. The only way the joint can fail is if both dowels shear off.

Miller dowels ROCK!