Let me see if I have this right.......
12", 10", 8", and 6" cakes. each cake sits on a seperator plate, which usually has marks on it somewhere so you know where to put the dowels, right?? Then you push the dowels into the cake it sits on? There are lots more dowels for the 10, than for the 6.
Ok, does the cake also sit on a cake board, or just the separator plate? And if I wanted to use a Center Dowel Rod to go thru all 4 layers, how in the heck do i get it to go thru all those layers of cake, board AND seperator plates?? That dowel would have to be 16-20" long right?? Where do you find something like that??
Jennifer
Yes you would use does for the cakes to support the weight, at least 4-6 dowels should do. I would put a cake board on the bottom of the cake and then place it on the seperator plate.
I don't believe that they have dowels that long, at least I haven't seen them in that length. But yes you can place a dowel (sharpened dowel) into the center for more support. You would have to sharpen the end on the dowel in order for it to get thru the board. GOOD LUCK
If there is a store called "The Christmas Tree Shop", near you, check it out. I just happen to find a pack (12 pcs) of bamboo sticks they use for barbique. They are apprx. 24" long, same diameter as the wilton wooded dowels and already sharpened on one end. And best of all 12 pcs for less than $2.
Uhmmm unless I am missing something...the original post was talking about seperator plates with feet markers ont eh bottom. To me this means a plastic seperator plate like wilto sells.
I am no expert but I am pretty sure if you are going to use a center dowel rod you should use cardboard wrapped in contact paper (see earlenescakes.com for directions).
And I am not sure that I would rely on a 1/4 dowel to stablize the center of the 4 tier cake. If you go to Home depot or similar you can buy larger dowels and cut them to size. Just don't buy treated wood. You can also get larger (i use 1/2") ones at michael's in the wood section. Again, not treated.
So you stack them on the cardboards, the bottom tier is on a heavy duty board. The bottom layer is 12" so you put in 8 dowels in the bottom layer, put the 10" cake on, then put in 6 dowels, then put the 8" on and put in 4 dowels, then put the 6" on. Then sharpen the end of you center dowel and GENTLY tap in down through the cake boards with a hammer. Cut the dowel to size...then fill the hole with whatever icing you used.
Hope this helps. Julia
Julia you are right!! I was planning on using the little plastic seperator plates. Completely forgetting that i cant' push the dowel rod thru those plates. So which do you think would be more stable? The center dowel rod, or just using the regular plastic plates? Can you tell i've never done this before? 
Well I guess that would depend on if you plan to move the cake after it is stacked.
I personally prefer the stability of the center dowel...but I am sure there are people that use the seperator plates without the center.
I do it it just as I typed before...you can see in my photos all of the cakes that are stacked (even 2 tiers I am paranoid! 
).
Even the white cake with the bows (4 tiers) I have in my photos I put together there and I still inserted a dowel. You just never know who is going to bump a table and the cake table was very close to the nearest guest table.
Good luck ,let me know if you need more answers and I wil try to help.
julia
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