Building stall bars & what stain to use on dowels?

Finally decided to build my own stall bars. Started last night but I am not done yet.

 

(2) 2x8x8 ($10) for my uprights (used 8 inches since I had to cut in on the bottom to fit on my garage wall)

(12) 1.5" dowels (poplar 48" from Lowes, $75. Will cut it down to 38", 48" was cheaper than buying 36")

(1) 1 1/2" spade drill bit, bought one from Ebay for $3.5. The holes I drilled are an inch deep.  

(1) 2x4x8 ($3). The 2x4 will be secured to the back side of the stall bars in two places and then secured to the garage wall by 5/16x3' lag screws.

(1) Box of 4" wood screws ($6) which will hold the dowels from turning in addition to wood glue in the holes. Had to buy long screws since my uprights are 8 inches wide. I ll probably use a small sized spade drill bit to drill in so the screw can go all the way through the dowel. If I leave it as is, the screws wont go all the way through the dowel.

 

Additionally, will be using L brackets ($3 each), 5/16x2" lug nuts (L brackets to uprights), and 5/16x2 lag screws (L bracket to 2x4) to secure it. Spent about $13 in screws but this depends on what you want to use and what you have laying around the house. I am 6'1" and about 190-195 pounds. I think this will be sufficient for my weight.

 

I am thinking of attaching a piece of 2x8 that is about 10 inches long on the top of the uprights for the last dowel so I can off-set the last hole about 2.5-4 inches. Will post more pics once I am done. Probably later in the week.

 

And now to my question... does anybody know what stain I can use on the dowels? Currently, the dowels are smooth and seem very slippery. I think with the right stain on the dowels, the grip could be improved.

 

Thanks for any advice on the stain or any other tips on the stall bars.

 

 

 

My free-standing stall bar plans are posted here, I didn't use stain but did use several coats of polyurethane on the entire assembly to include the dowels. They're kind of sticky and I think I would have liked just bare wood instead. If your bars will be inside, there's not as much reason to seal the dowels, and if you make them like I did, you can even replace them.

I'd suggest you seal everything except dowels, assemble the whole deal, and try it. You might try sealing one dowel to just see what you like better, then go from there. For sure it would be easier to seal your dowels when they're mounted than when they're loose and rolling around everywhere.

Brent Johnson

Thanks for the tip! After trying in out on one dowel, I liked the feeling and polyurethaned all the dowels and the uprights. Here is a pic of the finished project. The only change that I did from my original post is that I did not use any lug nuts but just lag screws to fasten the L brackets.