Hi everyone! I am going to be making my first three tiered cake. There will be a double layer 10" cake, double layer 8" cake and a double layer 6" cake. Each one has to be iced smooth with buttercream, so of course I would put it on a cake circle and use my stand. So, when I'm ready to stack, do I stack the 8" cake on top of the 10" cake, cake circle and all?? And then repeat with the 6" cake? Or do I use dowel rods for support. Thanks so much for the help! I've learned so much from all of you by just reading the forum. Thanks again!
Leave the cakes on the boards and use dowel rods, or the 6 inch cake will be sitting inside the 1o inch wether you want it to or not. 
Read this article for help.
http://www.cakecentral.com/article23-Teired-Stacked-Cake-Construction.html
My only tip is to use a level! Maybe you can "mark" the center of the cake w/ a cake board and then put a level on top of that.... then put your next cake tier on top .... for instance, take the 10 in. layer, put an 8 in cake circle on it to mark the middle, put a level on that and make sure your cake is level first.... THEN put some dowels in and see that it's still level.... maybe put the cake board back on after and put the level back on when you have dowels in.... THEN stack the next layer (8 in). Do the same w/ the 8 in. and then put the center dowel through.... I used a pencil sharpener to sharpen mine but then washed it (b/c of lead left over from other pencils). Also - make sure your hammer is clean! (oops) When you hit it through some stuff could come off...
I also wrapped my boards w/ contact paper to make them a little stiffer.... of course if you use plates you wouldn't need to do that but you should probably still use dowels....
Now why didn't I come up w/ all of these brilliant ideas BEFORE I made my first two-layer cake for a wedding??? (in my photos - I was VERY disapointed w/ how tilted it was... 
) - oh well they liked it.
Thank you all so much!!! That was all super helpful and I appreciate it so much. Leaning cakes drive me nutz, so the level thing is a great idea! Ok, so, reading the article someone suggested, I used one wooden dowel rod sharpened at one end to go through all three cakes. Now, will that pierce through the cake circles, even if they're covered in contact paper? And speaking of contact paper, is it worth it to do that or is it okay to leave the cake circles uncovered? And in each individual cake, do I use wooden dowel rods or the plastic ones? I apologize, this is my first and it happens to be an important one. Sorry for all the questions!
I agree with everyone, except you may want to rethink your sizes. You should have 4 inches between each cake. For example, a 12 inch, a 8 inch, and a 4 inch. Having a 10,8, and 6 will not leave much room for boarders or the ability to cut it easily. Just a thought!
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