[reynoldston]

Making a snow sled out of ash for my great grand daughter. The plans call for 8 1/2 in. dowels. I tried to make some dowels but had very poor luck at it. I when to the hardware to buy some just standard doweling and all I could find was popular dowels and was thinking they would be way off in color. I went to the internet and with shipping for ash doweling I am looking at 30 dollars. I am going to look in some hobby shops today. Any suggestions what might match the ash?

 

[Brian T.]

Either find someone with a good dowel cutter or, pick the pieces to show a great contrast.
There's a warmth to woods that screws and bolts don't have.

It's possible, but tedious to make the dowel pieces with a spokeshave.
Hey! They're just short spokes!

 

[reynoldston]

I was thinking of trying to make some dowels with a router? My wood working skills are more into the trial and error with a lot of errors.

 

[Old Bark]

Go to You Tube and search for making wooden dowels.

Here is one from across the pond :thumbsup:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p4D8lW8uouw

Old Bark

 

[tonyuno]

Most specialist stores for mouldings and other finishing wood products carry dowels in various woods, went into the net and found a company called BearWoods who list a whole range of Dowels in numerous woods, including Ash.

 

[bladeburner]

Don't know what you'll find on utube, but do keep both ends square as you round over your stock....then bandsaw the dowel from the stick.