As a professional carpenter, I make an item for use in the kitchen to hold the popular K-cups for the Keurig single-cup coffee maker. The dowels used in the project should be straight and I prefer the light color of white birch. I love these dowels. They are basically all straight and all white birch with no bits of dark sapwood. They ship same day or next day and I received them early. I contacted the seller and got a quick response with the information I needed. I've ordered twice and the service and product matched.