Anyone build RTT rainfly poles that can be separated?

[NatersXJ6]

So I recently picked up a new-to-me Kukenam Sky model. I love it. Living in an area where rain events are often 9 months apart, I'm looking for a way to stow the fly until risk of rain seems likely. I started out with the idea of velcro mounting the poles to the underside of the tent along with the ladder, but it seems like they would stow more nicely if they could break down in the center and divide into shorter sections.

Has anyone done this to a set of poles? I can make new ones out of steel (simplest and cheapest solution), but my bender only goes down to 3/4", and I don't want to buy a 1/2" die for 3 poles. If I did make new ones, I could also make them from Aluminum or Stainless, as I believe both are available at my local metal supplier.

I was also thinking about just cutting the factory poles in the middle and gluing in a piece of smaller tubing to create the "male" part of the system.

I can't be the only one with this idea. Who else has done this. Any improvement thoughts or ideas for me?

Thanks!

Nate

 

[rickc]

If you decide to keep the poles inside the fly pockets, a better approach if cutting would be to pick one side and cut close to the edge so you have one long piece and one stubby one; easier to connect/disconnect at the side of the tent than reaching over to the middle. Cutting whichever way you go will require a fastening approach that ensures the bends at each end are in the same plane.

Good luck Nate.

 

[NatersXJ6]

Heh. Heh. Heh. Fail #1

Well, I decided that I wanted to push forward, without damaging my factory poles, in case something like today happened...

I didn't want to use steel, because I didn't want to deal with rust or paint rubbing off on the tent, so that left aluminum.

A quick trip to the local metal supply netted 20' of 3/4" x .120 wall 6061-T6, cut in 10' lengths. Cost was about $32, and .120 was all they had unless I wanted solid. I figured out that I will need all 20' for the 3 rain fly poles. The hardware store had 4' of 1/2" rod for about $7 and that was the lowest / cheapest way I could find to make the male sections on the tube. I figured I would plug the opposite ends with plastic body / trim connectors.

So, I set up my JD2 and made the first bend. It was remarkably difficult to bent in comparison to similarly sized steel, and had a lot of spring back. After that one, I did one more.

One of the interesting things I came up against is that the factory poles are not bent to 90 degrees, but instead something more like 85 or 87.

On the third bend, all hell broke loose, literally. The tube suffered brittle failure after about 30 degrees of bend, leaving me stumbling across the garage as if someone had just dropped a tug of war rope, and pieces of aluminum flying everywhere, chased through the garage by a moderate amount of cursing.

After examining the break, realizing tha there was no fatigue at all, and it was a very brittle failure, I decided to crack some books and look up material properties of 6061-T6. It turns out that there is enough work hardening in bending this already hard material that the surprising part is not the breakage, but instead the successful bending of 2 other pieces! After closely looking at the others, you can see the grainy structure in the bend zones...

I will be trying to anneal the next pieces prior to bending, although I don't currently have any temperature indication method. I might buy some crayons tomorrow.

In any event, I now have to decide if I need to buy another piece and have a bunch leftover, (or screw up a few more times) or if I should just go to steel. I didn't anticipate this as a $100 project, but it looks like that may be the cost of knowledge.

Speaking of cost, I may ask the university for a partial refund on my metallurgy knowledge... It only seems fair!

 

[ducktapeguy]

It's been along time, but I remember annealing aluminum with an acetylene torch. Heating the aluminum with an acetylene rich flame covers the part in soot, which then burns off with a hotter oxy-acetylene flame. Once the soot burns off, the part is annealed.

Since the poles only purpose is to hold the rainfly away from the tent a few inches and doesn't have much stress, why not use 1/2" or 3/4" electrical PVC? The corner sections are gently rounded to about the right radius and the end sections are already flared to slip fit together for easy disassembly. You could even use a heat gun to gently curve the poles in the center to provide better runoff.

I'm wondering why even bother taking the fly at all? I removed mine a couple years ago and never bothered putting it back on, the roof material itself can hold up to light rain without it. If it's going to be heavy rain, you'd probably know far enough in advance if you're going to need it or not. Unless I'm planning on camping out in a hurricane type weather, the rainfly will probably stay in the garage forever, I love being able to have an open roof for ventilation