I had a very specific image in my head for the scroll dowels. I was planning on having the dowels look wooden, but I also wanted to try a wooden dowel painted black.
For the scroll dowel, I found a piece of cylindrical wood from the free-use hub which I am told is a broom handle. I also found some thicker pieces of cylindrical wood from N4. The thinner pieces are around 18mm-19mm, and the thicker pieces are around 25mm.
I was looking for a finial that I could put on the end so I went to three different stores in Edinburgh to find them.
I first went to Ali's Cave near the university building. I did find a simple wooden door knob but nothing the shape I wanted. My next stop was Wickes on Stevenson Road, but I didn't see any ornate finials there. There are a few on the website which I was looking for but you need to order them online, and you cannot see them physically. Finally, I went to B&Q in Hermiston. Here I found a bag of wooden snowmen, that was very much the perfect shape. I also bought some big ornate plastic finials and a pair of beautiful wooden finials. However, both the plastic finials and the wooden finials were too big for the dowels I had.
I drilled holes into both the snowmen and the dowels, and inserted a wooden circular piece with wood glue to link the two pieces. I also sanded the edges of the dowel so they were rounded. After that I clamped the joined dowel and put wood filler on the area where the snowman and the dowel met, trying to make the joining as seamless as possible. After this dried, I sanded it to smoothen the edge and then finally spray painted it black to finish it.
This was my first working even with such simple power tools, and also my first time using sandpaper. It was surprisingly simple although very intimidating. I did not do a good job, but with the sanding and the wood filler, the dowels look fine.
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