after enough rim shots and crashes the dowels break one by one

For a bunch of cheap dowels taped together, these are very expensive.

The dowels still tend to break somewhat easily but that's a fact of life

However, the individuals dowels splinter and break rather easily, and after only two months of playing each rod went from 19 dowels to about 10 dowels (and the change in sound and feel was noticeable).I recommend using Vic Firth's bamboo tala wands instead

no, the smaller dowels will chip and break