_ 80mm tube………………
Drain pipe is about 80mm & I may have some complete with brackets. Well the good news is that I found some downpipe but the outside diameter is 80mm, the inside is approx 76mm. The plastic bearing housing is 87mm at the moment but I could trim the outside diameter plastic down to 76mm which matches the exact overall diameter between the fixing of the aluminum bearing housing so this should in theory work just, it certainly looks possible. Much easier to do on a lathe but I don’t have one so back to the jigsaw & see how that pans out. The downside is that the downpipe brackets I have are plastic although I have lots of them, I’m still not sure about using so much plastic but without knowing the weight & RPM of the blades it’s not easy to understand how much force is involved, ok so I’m going to plow on for now & see how the plan evolves. It is worth pointing out here that there are many different types of drainpipe/downpipe but I ended up using a Marley one because it had a thick side wall of approx. 3.5mm which is quite stiff compared to others. Update, I later found out that normal downpipe is very thin & the piece of pipe I was using which had the 3.5mm wall thickness was for underground. Using the jigsaw to reduce the diameter of the plastic bearing housing worked really well, I knew that jigsaw would come in handy one day. I reduced the diameter so the 4 aluminum fixing slots were visible & it force fits into the drain pipe, success. However in hind sight I would have covered each end of the bearing housing to stop the plastic swarf from entering it, stuffing a rag in each end would have done it. The more I think about the idea of using the drainpipe the more I like it, so I’m going to mount the whole thing onto a chunky piece of 8x4 timber, unsure if I should mount it on top or under the timber, being under would protect it more from the elements but more strain on those weak plastic drainpipe clamps, I’m sure it will be obvious once I have it all together. Yes, it was obvious, the drainpipe idea is fantastic but the plastic clamps are not so I’m going to pop out tomorrow & pick up some U bolts & maybe I could use a narrower piece of timber with these. I would of course mount the whole thing on top the timber to keep the underneath clear for fixing the pole. Tomorrow I’m also going to pick up some scaffold adjustable legs that I ordered earlier, I’m hoping to use these to secure a scaffold pole to the top assembly & maybe use another at the bottom as well. This looks like it’s really coming together now, I feel I’ve got passed all the major problem areas but I still have a lot to do. |
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