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So, for the very observant among you, you may have realized that I finished my "Mast-from-junk" but didn't fill you in on all the details! So how would you know this? The giveaway would probably be that if you happened to read my post on Winter Field Day this year or happened to watch my video about Winter Field Day you would have realized that I used it!
With that being said, if you want to read about how my junk-mast project got started, check out Part 1 of the story before continuing on here. If you already read Part 1, or if you just like to shoot from the hip and decided you'll figure it out as you go - read on!
With that being said, if you want to read about how my junk-mast project got started, check out Part 1 of the story before continuing on here. If you already read Part 1, or if you just like to shoot from the hip and decided you'll figure it out as you go - read on!
For a quick refresher (or for those that don't want to go back and read) here's the quick summary - I had been eyeballing fiberglass masts, and while deciding what to buy, I stumbled upon a telescoping fiberglass pole that was bound for a dumpster in one of the many commercial buildings that my work takes me to. From there, I decided to start piecing together other bits of junk, or at least cheap stuff, to make myself a functional mast.
At the point I left off, I had the mast, and I had inserted a piece of broom handle that had painter's pole thread on the end, and I had started fixing that all together. Sometime shortly after that post I also stumbled onto a short section of scrap PVC that I needed to make a "splint" over a hole that had been drilled in the bottom section of the pole. Now that you're caught up, here we go!
At the point I left off, I had the mast, and I had inserted a piece of broom handle that had painter's pole thread on the end, and I had started fixing that all together. Sometime shortly after that post I also stumbled onto a short section of scrap PVC that I needed to make a "splint" over a hole that had been drilled in the bottom section of the pole. Now that you're caught up, here we go!
One of the next things I added to the mast was an eye-hook. Since I had filled the gap around the pole in the middle with epoxy (I used the loctite stuff you can get from amazon or a local supplier because it flows nicely to fill the gap, but cures nice and hard), I drilled a hole through the mast, epoxy, and center pole, and added this eye-hook that I dug out of the hardware drawer in my garage. This means that the top of this mast can now accept a buddi-pole thread adapter, anything that I can clip into the eye-hook, or anything that I can clamp around the mast (since the top is pretty solidly filled with epoxy.)
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With the top of the mast done, I wanted to add guy rings, so that I could attach ropes etc. to keep things tall and straight. Thankfully, I managed to dig up some scrap pieces of HDPE plastic that I had left over from the mounting panel that I made for the control head of the radio in my car (you can read about that project in my post called New and Improved.) If you don't happen to have this stuff lying around, I'd recommend grabbing some, as it comes in handy for all kinds of radio-related projects where you need to make mounting panels, brackets, etc. and you need something that looks nice, and isn't metal.
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I had some of this that was white, and some that was black, but for making guy rings, I figured it doesn't matter if they match or not!
I let the guy rings "float" so that they can rotate around their section of the pole which makes putting things up easier. The top guy ring stays on the mast because it can't slide down past the section below it, and it can't slide up past the eye hook. The bottom section is trapped between between the fitting for the next section up, and the "splint" that I made to span the hole that someone drilled through the pole in the past. As a note - I didn't permanently attach the splint till the guy ring was in place - otherwise I would have run into a small problem....
All that was left to do at this point was to add guy ropes. Thanks to life being busy, I didn't actually get around to that until we were actually setting up for Winter Field Day! If you watch the video some of what we're doing when you see us with the tape measure stretched out is actually measuring and cutting the guy ropes. The worked out well...below is close-up of the guy ropes attached to the pole, and a picture from Winter Field Day with the mast standing at full height, in all of its saved-from-the-trash glory.
All in, since most of the parts I used were junk or scraps, this mast cost me about 60 cents per foot of height. Compare that to the $4.00 plus per foot of height for a commercially made mast, and I think I did alright - don't you?
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