Quant | Description | Notes | Pictures |
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1-1/4"dia x 12 foot long closet pole | You'll be amazed how crappy most of the closet rods are at Home Depot, but persistence pays off. Sort through the rack. Make sure you get a full 12 feet. Look for dense, straight, knot-free, parallel grain. There must be one in there. This means, especially, try to avoid grain that cuts diagonally across the pole. Take your candidate poles down and roll them on the floor to check for straightness. Don't tell the sales person what you're doing. A slight bow, well distributed over the length of the pole isn't serious. (see 'Marking' below.) | |
Note: You can stop here, go to Marking, and simply go poling. Continue if you want to build a pole that will last more than a few trips. | |||
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1" copper sweat end cap | Go to the plumbing department for these. They get pressed and clamped as a ferrule over the end of the pole to eliminate fraying or splitting of the pole end. | |
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5/16" x 2-1/2” or 3" long hanger bolt | This is like a stud with a lag screw thread for wood on one end and a standard coarse machine screw thread on the other. This is a more or less sacrificial point for working against rocks and gravel. | |
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5/16 washer, plated | ||
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5/16" hex nut, plated | coarse thread to match the hanger bolt. | |
Boiled linseed oil | If you have boat oil around, you can use that instead. Oil doesn't seem to be functionally necessary, but the linseed does leave an agreeably grippy surface. You can look smug and superior while aluminum polers are discussing surfboard wax. Make certain you get boiled oil. The raw stuff won’t dry and you’ll be left with a mess. | ||
Turpentine |
Figure 1 shows an exploded view of the typical pole end. Fabricate and
assemble according to the following steps.
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Description | Note | Picture |
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Whittle both pole ends for a force fit with the copper end caps. | Note the chamfer on the end of the pole to clear the inside fillet radius of the cap. Functionally, it's important that the top edge of the end cap doesn't protrude out beyond the outside diameter of the pole. Such an exposed edge will catch rocks and cause problems out on the river. I file a chamfer around the top edge of the end cap, but that's kinda fussy and I don't say that everyone has to do it. Wait until you've gotten it caught a couple of times. | |
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Drill the center holes in the copper caps. | ||
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Hammer on the end caps with a rubber or plastic mallet or by driving the pole and end cap down on a block of wood - any way that seats the cap firmly without deforming it.. | ||
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Drill holes in the pole ends to receive lag-bolt thread of the hanger bolt. | Center the holes on the through-holes in the end caps, Pick a drill size somewhere around the minor diameter of the hanger bolt. It pays to align this hole with the pole axis as well as you can. | |
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Install the hanger bolts | Double-nut a hanger bolt (wind two nuts onto the machine thread portion, and tighten them together so you can wrench the hanger bolt in like a regular lag screw) and twist it into the pole end until the lag-bolt thread disappears into the wood, and only the machine thread portion is exposed. |
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Remove the nuts, double-nut the other bolt and install it. | ||
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Remove the double nuts, install one washer and one nut on each end and tighten. |
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For an alternate pole end detail, see a Hudson’s Bay Company style here
Fill a small can (small frozen oj or small V-8 juice can works well) half full of the mixture and stand pole up on end to submerge the end fitting in the can. You should be sure that you've submerged the wood above the end cap. Your purpose here is to soak oil into the wood to tighten the joint and to prevent decay. After a few hours, swap the ends. Wait a few hours, remove, wipe off excess, and let air dry.
Within a foot or two of the ends, the pole tends to get hammered by streambed rocks, so you should re-oil frequently if you intend to keep the pole.
Go poling.
It's not too hard to find canoe books that document the pole foot technology developed over the centuries for a wide range of conditions, and many of those designs can be adapted for attachment to the hanger bolt of the pole end I've detailed here. If you do plan to use the hanger bolt this way, plan ahead by double nutting it on both ends, so that removal of the top nut dresses up the bolt threads (which get pretty hammered by the streambed.) so you can screw on whatever attachment you come up with.
To some extent the water absorption can be controlled by keeping the
wooden pole well oiled. So the bottom line is that while you’re out
poling with a closet rod, be thinking about outfitting yourself with an
aluminum one. Especially if you have ambitions to take on Harry.