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Hexagonal bamboo ski poles
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.
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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.
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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.
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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!
