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So, my YL has this thing she says about "putting things out there in the universe" and then being patient. This week I got started on a project because of something I had left hanging out there in the universe, so maybe there is something to it after all....
Those of you who follow along with my posts know that I have a Buddipole Mast/Antenna system that I use fairly often during portable operations. It's great, especially when I'm flying somewhere for work, because it packs up pretty small. There are times though when I'm driving somewhere that I'd like a taller mast. I've spent a lot of time surfing around the web, and had kind of decided on a certain model of fiberglass mast that I liked because it seemed sturdy, had strong looking clamps to hold the sections, and depending on the model, had a top section that I could fit one of the pieces of my buddipole stuff onto, in order to use it with my buddipole parts if I wanted. The drawback was the price. It wasn't that expensive, but I just hadn't been able to get myself to pull the trigger.
Cue the universe....
I was in the Hudson Valley for work, and while on one of our jobsites I saw a pole standing in the corner with our guys equipment that looked strikingly like the masts I had been eyeballing, so I asked what it was. They said they used to use it reach high stuff, but that the end was busted up, and they didn't use it anymore, and that they just hadn't gotten around to throwing it away. I quickly offered to take it off their hands.
It wasn't as tall as the one I was looking at, and was a bit rough in a couple spots, but is was free! I figured I could try it out, and if I really liked it maybe I would buy the same thing, but taller. To start, they were right about the end being busted up. The fiberglass on the top was split, but only about 3 inches down. My miter saw made quick work of that, so even though it was now 3" shorter, I had a good solid top. I also noticed that the bottom section had a largish hole drilled in it for some reason (you can see that in the picture above). I figured I would think up something to do about that along the way.
Since this was a free thing, I wasn't sure exactly how I was going to peice this together, but I decided to just let this one kind of "fall together" and see what happened. The top section was 1.25" in diamater, so I didn't really have anything that would fit around that to adapt to my buddipole stuff, so at first I was thinking I'd just put an eye bolt through the top and use it to support the center of dipole, or wire etc. Suddenly however, I remembered that in the scrap metal pile in the garage I had a broom handle from a no longer used broom, that had the same thread on the end as a painters pole:
My Buddipole stuff does have an adapter to mount it's parts onto a painters pole, so I decided to try to re-purpose this, and make it so that this would be on the top of my mast, and then maybe I could give myself options - this to thread stuff onto, an eye bolt or 2 in order to hold it and also act as accessory places to hook wires or guys to, etc. With that thought in mind I quickly chopped the top 18" or so off this handle, so that I had the business end available.
Unfortunately, this handle didn't really fit snug in any manner that was convenient right away:
What I needed was some way to hold this pole centered inside the top of the mast, while I figured out some way to permanently attach it so that it wouldn't move. Step 1, center the handle in the mast, with just the thread sticking out the top. That problem was easily solved with several wraps of electrical tape - just enough to make the fit snug:
With the pole then inside, and the threads sticking out, I could see that I was getting somewhere:
To start filling the gap, I grabbed two tubes of this stuff (Loctite Epoxy), and figured I could use it to fill the void, which would help to lock the handle in place and make the top part stiffer, giving me the option to clamp things around the mast as well, without fear of crushing the fiberglass:
The thought is that once the epoxy cures, I would drill through the fiberglass mast, epoxy, and handle in 2 spots, and put eye bolts through. I haven't gotten that done yet because it turns out that two tubes wasn't enough to completely fill the gap, so i'll need to grab more. The thought here is that this will give me 2 spots to hook things too, and will also prevent the handle inside the mast from rotating.
My mind next turned to that hole in the bottom section. More than just the ugliness of it, I worried that it would make a weak spot where the mast would potentially break. The bottom section of the mast is 2" in diameter, so pretty quickly I thought that a sleeve of 2" PVC (PVC is sized by inside diameter) would be nice to slide over it and act like a splint. Queue the universe again. While I was debating purchasing a whole section of 2" PVC just to get a few inches of it, my work took me to the basements of some old buildings, that had piles of junk laying around in them. What do you suppose just happened to be lying in one of those junk piles? That right - a short section of 2" PVC!
I haven't cut it to length or permanently attached it yet, but here you can see how nicely it slides over that bottom section:
So what comes next? Well, I need to attach the PVC, and finish filling in the top at a minimum. Before I do that though, I'd like to make a couple guy rings to attach guy ropes to. The bottom one I want to slide on before I attach the PVC, as it will end up floating between the top of the PVC and the bottom of the first clamp. The second one I plan on putting on the top section, so that it floats between the top clamp, and the eye hooks. I had some HDPE flying around here from other projects, which would have been a perfect material to cut these out of, but apparently I used it all up, so here's my next request universe.....I could really use a couple old beat-up plastic cutting boards......
I'll update everyone once I finish this, but so far I'm only into it for about $11. since this is an 18' mast, that makes it about 61 cents per foot. Not bad considering the commerial option I was looking at, while much taller, worked out to be $4.27 per foot....
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