Shopsmith Forums

After breaking down an 80’s vintage baby crib that my daughter says no longer meets current safety standards for drop sides and spindle spacing I now have an abundance of hard maple dowels both 1” smooth as well as turned shaped spindles. Any project ideas? Pen blanks come to mind for the 1” smooth dowels but I haven’t turned any pens & wondered if maple is a good fit. Also not sure what to do with the shaped spindles - they like the smooth dowels have a dark finish but being shaped would be harder to repurpose.

How long are the dowels? If long enough, use the 1" dowels as legs and turn the shaped ones down for the thin spindles on some footstools. The tops can be caned, woven rope, Shaker tape, or paper rush. Check out some of the Shaker style footstools to get an idea of what I am talking about.

The longest dowels are at least 12” so a footstool is definitely possible. Good idea - I’ll check out Shaker examples.