In an attempt to lighten my bridge hammock, I decided to try some carbonfiber speaderbars after seeing what BER had done on his Bridge.
My bridge hammock with bugscreen and everything weighed in at 14.8oz and the 28" and 36" spreader bars weighed in at 9.3oz for a total of 24.1oz.
BER's CF poles were a single rods of CF and weighed in at 4oz. I thought I would try to make some that were segmented and I believe I have accomplished it, although I have not stress tested them yet.
I'll warn you up front this is not an inexpensive project, but if you are a gram weenie or have bad knees or are both like me you may find it worth the cost. Hopefully in the end I will find the weight savings worth the cost of this project.
I purchased 2 CF tubes from http://www.rockwestcomposites.com/ #45166 and #45164. With light sanding #45164 ($28) slides perfectly inside #45166 ($31). I told the company what sizes I wanted each piece to be cut and that I wanted the one tube to act as a ferrel for the second tube and had them sand it to fit. I thought I would have them cut and sand because I wanted them square and to fit great. Cuts were $1/cut and sanding was $10 total. I'll say that their work was excellent, cuts were accurate and the tubes fit perfectly. The kicker which still aggravates me is that on each rod they charge a $12.25 setup fee and then $10.00 handling and $24 shipping for for something that weighed less than 7oz. That sort of thing just rubs me the wrong way.
For my spreader bar tips I am using #4024 0.433" Easton pole tips from questoutfitters.com The 0.625" were too big and these are too small, but I think I can epoxy them in ok to where they will work.
My new bars are 39" and 30". The 39" I segmented into 3 pieces and the 30" bar I segmented into 2 pieces. For the ferrels I cut the smaller bar into 4" length and epoxied 2" into the larger bar, leaving 2" sticking out to slide into the connecter piece. The end result weighed in at 127gm or 4.5oz and they are 5" in total longer than my other spreaderbars made from Easton 0.625 aluminum weighing 9.3oz. This is a very expensive way to lose 4.8oz so It probably isn't really worth it, but I'll keep telling myself that it is.
Attached are a few pics of tubes epoxied together. They slide together nicely and time will tell if they can take my weight in my newest bridge.
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