[TowerTalk] Fwd: Fiberglass Supplier

[HansLG at aol.com]

I believe you have bamboo growing in a good part of Alabama. My son  was 
living in Tuscaloosa for some time and told me you easily could find 15 '  
bamboo sticks around, free to harvest. 
 
You do have to treat them, by heating them to get them in a shape you like  
them. Apparently, when you heat them up, some of the resin in the "meat" 
will  come out and coat the surface. If you don't do that, the bamboo stick 
may crack  along the length and become relative useless for our purposes.
 
Hans - N2JFS
 
Gene and Daniel--
Too bad Plano is so far from NE Alabama-- I have a  moderate (several 
hundred 
canes) grove of Timber Bamboo that has to be  thinned every spring.
Bill--W4BSG

----- Original Message -----  
From: "Gene Smar" <ersmar at verizon.net>
To: "Tower and HF antenna  construction topics." <towertalk at contesting.com>
Sent: Thursday,  January 28, 2010 7:24 PM
Subject: Re: [TowerTalk] Fiberglass  Supplier


> Daniel:
>
>     I'm afraid  I'm going to be contrary to your <no wood> requirement 
with
> my  suggestion.  When I was first licensed in the 60s, many QST and Pop
>  Electronic articles on construcing quads suggested using bamboo poles as
>  spreaders.  At that time they were obtainable from carpet stores; the  
> carpet
> material was often shipped wound around such poles and  the poles were 
then
> available at little or no cost.  Later  construction articles urged that
> these poles should be wrapped in  fiberglass tape to prolong their useful
> life.
>
>   This might not be a particularly appealing choice, especially if  you
> consider having to wrap the bamboo in tape, but I throw it out there  
FWIW.
>
> 73 de
> Gene Smar   AD3F