Hexagonal bamboo ski poles

[miserywhip]

Don't post a lot of stoke, but figured the collective might have interest in this.

Started working part-time recently for a builder of bamboo fly rods. I mentioned to a buddy that I wanted to build myself a pair of ski poles in fly rod style, and he convinced me to build my first pair as a gift for a friend who is currently putting us up in his place in Hokkaido.



My boss had built a couple pairs a number of years ago, so had plenty of ideas. The build was somewhat complicated by the thickness of the poles (the tip was as thick as the butt of a 5wt rod), which meant our rod building processes didn't work perfectly.





They still came out quite pretty, in my opinion, and the recipient was stoked when we gave them to him yesterday. Definitely room for improvement, though, as there were bigger voids on a few seams than their should have been. Finished with 0000 steel wool and 5 coats of gun stock oil.





Sorry for the poor photos, I've never been good at product-type photos, and my whole house is rough cut wood, so tough to get much contrast.

If I do make myself a pair, I may try to put a bend in them during the gluing process to approximate the best poles ever, the Smith Z-bend. If anyone has a pair of Z-bends or the DPS version and wants to take a profile photo (even better if on some sort of gridded, flat surface), I'd appreciate it!

[halliday]

Since those are kinda of split cane poles do they flex quite a bit? I love cane poles. My first poles were bamboo and two years ago my wife bought me a pair of Grassticks for Christmas. I love them.

[Marshal Olson]

Rad project! So cool.
I have some GS bend poles I could send you for the cost of shipping (about $15-20 i'd guess).
pm if interested

[mntlion]

caucasian asian is hording some smith Z bends. odds are he can trace/measure

[Whiteroom_Guardian]

Want

[waveshello]

There are a pair of Z-bends on KSL for $15. 50"

[miserywhip]

Yep, they've got some good flex, mostly towards the tip. The weirder part was screwing the baskets on, you can feel the whole pole twist. The guide friend I gave them to took them out for the first time today and was raving about them.

Thanks for the offer, Marshal - do we think z bends are the same profile as gs poles? I've never been sure why my old z bends were so magical, or how/if they're so different than gs poles.

Would definitely try to get the ksl poles if the guy would ship, but I can't even access ksl, presumably because I'm in Japan?

[CMSIV]

Love it! Good luck on project and hope this helps. Apologies for the bad lighting in the photos.
- First bend starts 48cm from pole tip
- The bend is 15cm long (in photo it starts at 5cm & ends 20cm)
- 2.5cm offset of the bend

[RAB3]

Very cool!

[miserywhip]

[QUOTE=CMSIV;6997118]Love it! Good luck on project and hope this helps. Apologies for the bad lighting in the photos.
- First bend starts 48cm from pole tip
- The bend is 15cm long (in photo it starts at 5cm & ends 20cm)
- 2.5cm offset of the bend


You're the man, thanks! I'll update when I get to proto pair #2.

ETA - somehow fucked up the quote, oops.

[r.e.nal.ynagu.as2.3@gmail.com]

I Forget where i place pics otherwise i must share pics and you really like these pics.