telescoping aluminum pole?

Um, with a clamping mechanism to lock the sections in position?

There are at least four completely different mechanisms in common use.

- Spring loaded locking pins

- Eccentric cams

- Screw down collet

- Lever / knob tightened clamps

I think I'm interested in the eccentric cam or collet approach. Lemme go google on that for a while. I was getting nowhere with "telescoping pole"...

Thanks Pete.

They're slightly elliptical, so they sort of cam lock when the mating parts are rotated relative to each other.

My pool pole, for net, brush, or vacuum, has two telescoping sections that are locked together wirth a plastic collet type clamp. Each part is about 8' long.

Wolfgang

I think you are on to it, Don.

I'm playing with a small Forespar jib pole. It usually locks in 1/4 turn but sometimes misses and rotates for a while.

I was thinking about using something like that for a tiller lock.

Either that ot something like a turnbuckle with opposite threads to screw in and out.

"Somewhere a True Believer is training to kill you. He is training with minimum food or water,in austere conditions, day and night. The only thing clean on him is his weapon. He doesn't worry about what workout to do--- his rucksack weighs what it weighs, and he runs until the enemy stops chasing him. The True Believer doesn't care 'how hard it is'; he knows he either wins or he dies. He doesn't go home at 1700; he is home. He knows only the 'Cause.' Now, who wants to quit?"

NCOIC of the Special Forces Assessment and Selection Course in a welcome speech to new SF candidates

Just looked, it has two short plastic cylinders with identically offset center holes, one piece pressed into the inner tube and the other free to rotate on a screw. I use them for trimming branches and cleaning the gutter. The lock holds well for endwise forces but not, of course, to much twisting.

The ceiling painting pole with a lever-operated pin lock works better.

jsw

Jim,

Your mention of gutter cleaning caught my eye, as my rear gutters are two stories up. I have an extension ladder that gets that high, but it requires a lot of effort to set up, and more to keep moving it down the side of the house.

I've tried a tall leaf-blower extension, but that gets a bit unwieldy at the two-story mark; any suggestions you could offer would be much appreciated.

How do you use the extension pole? Vertically ("ladderless"), or horizontally ("less ladder-shifting")? What to you use at the end of it?

Frank McKenney

-- Inborn desires are a nuisance to those with utopian and totalitarian visions, which often amount to the same thing. What stands in the way of most utopias is not pestilence and drought but human behavior. -- Steven Pinker, "The Blank Slate"

-- Frank McKenney, McKenney Associates Richmond, Virginia / (804) 320-4887 Munged E-mail: frank uscore mckenney ayut mined spring dawt cahm (y'all)

Probably the most effective ground level gutter cleaning method is with a pressure washer with a telescopic pole and 180 degree hook end. You can get all the components from Northern Tool.

Yep, that's a spinnaker pole!

Question is - how does it lock?

Wow! Wearing a slicker suit, I bet.

Pete Keillor

I made gutter hangers that don't block the top out of 1/8" aluminum strips. The scoop is a Home Depot 'Gutter Getter", which they don't seem to carry now, bolted crosswise to the end of the pole with a diagonal brace to the handle of the scoop. The top section of pole is a wooden broomstick since the wires hang close to the gutter.

My front gutters are two stories up and often clogged with catkins and leaves from the overhanging oaks. Leaves aren't too bad but when the gutters are half full of muck I can only scoop out a foot or two at a time.

The gutters wrap around the ends of the roof overhang to reach the downspouts, which are straight. I ran short pieces of gutter straight through the downspout tee fittings and cut a large drain hole in the bottom. There are no end caps so I can push debris out the end.

The downspouts are screwed to and supported by wall brackets at the lower end only so they are simple to remove from the ground when they clog at the top. I had to loosen the fit at the tee to make them go back on easily enough.

jsw

Don't you guys have a Home Depot in your area? I've seen those telescoping poles on display just a few hours ago.

Just looked, it has two short plastic cylinders with identically offset center holes, one piece pressed into the inner tube and the other free to rotate on a screw. I use them for trimming branches and cleaning the gutter. The lock holds well for endwise forces but not, of course, to much twisting.

The ceiling painting pole with a lever-operated pin lock works better.

jsw

Thanks! I haven't had the guts to pull apart a $400 spinnaker pole to see what's inside.

Well, now we know...

Pete, and Pete,

Thanks for jo> >

--snip--

--snip--

Thanks for the suggeestion. I'll take a look.

You'd better believe it. If there's any dampness in the gutter, even the leaf-blower approach produces an incredible amount of organic residue spattered in all directions. Adding water would just make it that much messier.

Frank

-- Remember that anecdote is not the singular of data.

-- Frank McKenney, McKenney Associates Richmond, Virginia / (804) 320-4887 Munged E-mail: frank uscore mckenney ayut mined spring dawt cahm (y'all)

Jim,

Thanks for the reply.

Ah! Mine were "professionally" installed using cross-supports ("stick barriers" at cleaning time) screwed into a long face strip. At least, _most_ of them were screwed in.

Did you do this, that is, install the gutters, from scratch?? Or just replace... er, re-hang existing gutters?

Okay. Once you've eliminated the barriers, and set the ladder up once, your only limitation would seem to be the length of pole you can work with while balanced on the ladder. Heck, with those logjam hangers out of the way, my Looj might even work.

My telephone and fiber cables are in the way on one run, but after re-reading I realized that you're probably talking about _power_ lines. Ack!

If you had a Trained Assistant runing below with a large bucket, you could replace the scoop with a "tilted wedge" shaped to the gutter that would get under the sludge and firce it up and over. Hm. Guess you'd need two so you could work both ways from the ladder.

(It's a lot more fun to design something for someone _else_; you don't have to deal with the inevitable Unforseen Consequences. )

Ah! That leaves the lower bracket supporting the entire weight of the downspout; not a problem?

Thanks for the description. You've started several trains of thought; now all I have to do is get one to the station before it derails.

Frank

-- Everything has to start with fantasy... Knowledge is what you finish up with, if you're lucky, after you've done the hard work -- but the hard work needs passion to drive it. People need reasons to be interested, reasons to be committed, reasons to do their damndest to find the truth. -- Brian Stableford / Dark Ararat

-- Frank McKenney, McKenney Associates Richmond, Virginia / (804) 320-4887 Munged E-mail: frank uscore mckenney ayut mined spring dawt cahm (y'all)

I installed new ones after reshingling, planning from the start to clean them from the ground. Several areas around my house aren't suitable for a ladder. Even where the ground is relatively level I rope the ladder to trees or the car so it can't slip sideways. The rope runs over pulleys at the to down to mountaineering ascenders, which make moving the ladder sideways simple.

I also fixed up a weighted brush and pulley rig to clean the chimney from the ground and made the tv antenna mast telescope to lower the antenna for repairs. Right now my HDTV antenna is two salvaged 6" aluminum standoffs stuck in the ends of plastic hose, a repair to an old Radio Shack UHF antenna. After the transition I'll tune it to the highest local station's frequency.

No ladder. The pool pole reaches from the ground. The gutter supports the weight and steadies it so I only have to slide the scoop along until it jams, then lift to spill the load over the edge. Naturally I don't stand directly underneath.

The lower end of the 10' section is within reach from a stepstool. The piece below it is well supported.

With only a few small exceptions this was or could have been done with hand tools. I made replacement antenna fittings and the antenna and chimney brush pulley assemblies from stainless steel on a metal lathe but commercial hardware would have worked.

jsw