Lots of doweling- suggestions?

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

My husband keeps bringing home pieces of dowel from work. They’re extra bits that are cut off longer pieces, which are used for… well, I don’t know that, but anyway, he keep bringing them home.

He uses them to hit people with- you know, practice knives for knife-fighting techniques and stuff. Kendo. Capoeira sticks, too. Perfectly normal. That’s fine, except he isn’t breaking them as fast as he’s bringing them home.

So, I want to do something with the extras, but I can’t think of much. They’re between 2 and 3 ft long, and from 1 inch to .50 inch wide. I suppose I use them to make Blair Witch Project things to hang on the door, but beyond that I’m stuck.

So, I need suggestions. There must be some woodwork-y type people here.

Someone is going to pop in and say, “I thought that said lots of toweling. What a rip-off”.

2

Geodesic domes. Cover them with mylar and use them as yard art or make doghouses out of them.

3

Large bird cages.

4

That’s just silly Kalhoun. What if you don’t have a large bird?

You could make a Pioneer Barbie Log Dreamhome. Or a fire.

5

Use them as rungs for emergency rope ladders. Put one in each upper-story room, along with a way to secure them to the window sill in case of fire.

6

Ummmmm Macrame?

Unique 3-D wall art?

Oh I know! Set them up so that they roll and you can use them to move the large heavy stones… As you build the Family Pyramid!!

7

Toothpicks for giants.

8

Build a fake jail cell.

9

Playpen for non-existent children? Very large skewers?
What the heck is a geodesic dome, and how would I make one?

10

Start your own wooden xylophone company.

11

Could use the thinner stuff to make box kites.

12

geodesic domes

13

Skeleton decorations for next halloween–very spooky. Dunno what you could do for a skull, though. Papier mache or maybe one of your husband’s knife fighting partners, if he ‘slipped’ one of these days.

14

How about a plate rack I also used dowels to make a trivets.

15

Make a spool cannon by gluing a couple of empty wooden spools together end to end. Then put some kind of stopper on the end of one of the dowels, and glue a small rubber band to that. Hook the other end of the rubber band to a nail stuck into one of the spools. Stick a bean or other small object (perhaps a lit match if you’re the pyromaniac type) into the open end of the cylinder of spools, pull back the dowel, and let go to fire.

16

Holy crap!

That is such a cool idea. I never thought of making something like this. So easy, so simple, so… medieval.
I am so making this.

17

Thanks. I learned it as a kid, and today while trying to search for seemingly nonexistent instructions online, I found out that it merits a mention in Tom Sawyer.

18

Unfortunately, my parents were too smart to let me out of their sight so I could try it with lit matches.

19

Axels/wheels for a wooden toy train?
homemade tinkertoys?

Brian

20

if you can come up with the joiner pieces from some Tinkertoys and some open-mesh-type fabric (preferably a synthetic), you’ve got all the makings for a homemade sweater drying rack. cut a real big rectangle of material. sew about a 1-inch hem along each side (leaving corners unsewn). slide lengths of doweling into hem through openings. join dowels at corners using joiner pieces to form frame. short pieces of doweling get stuck in the center hole of the joiner pieces to elevate frame off floor/table/flat surface. lay hand-washables or other “Dry Flat” clothing on frame to use.

lachesis

p.s. for double-size frame (two sweaters’ worth), you’d want to use 2 pieces of doweling for each long edge, and an additional support section running through the middle. you’d need 6 joiner pieces to connect all the dowels, as well as 6 short “leg” pieces for elevating. framework is roughly:

@@@ where “@” is the Tinkertoy joiner
|####|####| piece and “|” and "" are the
|####|####| dowel sections (and “#” is the
@@_@ mesh material. yeah, i know–DUH!)