Six Moon Designs Carbon Poles (Strength?)

The added weight of the ZPacks and Ruta Locura poles are worth the minuscule increase in weight – for me. If I have to push an ultralight straight-pole shelter into more serious storms (high winds), the upgrades I tend not to skimp on are stiffer, stronger poles and more stakes/guylines.

The SMD poles are fine for fair weather with minimal wind, but if you have to back off the tension to keep them from bending, then you are also decreasing the available wind-loading structure of the shelter…

I have a few nights experience with the SMD poles under benign winds. The poles definitely flex, and I back off tension during setup.

If you plan to camp in windy areas, Ryan is probably right – get stiffer poles.

Mountain Laurel Designs also sells custom 11 mm carbon fiber poles, with a 3 inch (8 cm) pole jack. Not cheap.

https://mountainlaureldesigns.com/product/custom-poles/

“Strong enough to use as an emergency trekking pole for tricky stream crossings, etc.” No experience with these, just passing the info along. I would never use the SMD poles that way.

— Rex

The weight is attractive so last year we tested these Easton poles as a potential way to offer a folding pole to sell with our X-Mid shelters. Right out of the box, it was obvious I wasn’t going to be comfortable with how weak/flexy they are. They work in benign conditions, but feel too sketchy to use in a storm. Not only are they narrow but they’re also tent poles, which means they’re designed to flex.

Much better is something thicker and designed to be stiff like the Zpacks and Ruta Locura poles.

Agree that you want stiff poles that flex no more than your trekking poles. My MYOG poles are 45”, 2.5 oz ea and  do not flex… at all. I used 12mm x 10mm but think you could go to 11 or maybe even 10mm OD…don’t think that would save much weight tho.

Super easy  project and you build exactly what you want. More info here

Thank you, everyone.

Too good (light) to be true (strong and stiff).

JCH, I’d been reading your thread about the poles you made. The supplier you linked to in that thread is out of tubes less than 15mm in diameter at the moment.

Does anyone have a source for poles that they trust?

My interest is in making some MYOG A-Frame poles for pyramids. I’ve been playing around with opening the center of symmetrical mids using A-Frame poles made with extended trekking poles and DPTE-type connectors. But I think I can make dedicated pole sets for the mids I have that come in at about half the weight of these trekking pole setups (so two connected poles for a Supermid-sized tent that weigh around 8-10 ounces). The trick is figuring out how thick the tubing should or must be. Hypothetically, I think, one should be able to get away with thinner tubing with an A-Frame setup than with a vertical center pole, simply because the compression forces will be shared by two poles. Bending, however, could be an issue with high wind loads that produce asymmetrical loads on the two poles. And too much bending of carbon could result in a catastrophic, and potentially dangerous, failure.

So the SMD poles are out, even for the smallest, Duomid-size mid I have. I’m open to any and all ideas and thoughts on this topic.

Thanks again.

I quite like adjustable poles, so I’d like go with the Ruta Locura ones but they are expensive. I think Lightheart Gear has less expensive but heavier adjustable aluminum poles too.

I don’t think you can use thinner poles in the A-frame setup than what’s needed as a single center pole.

The center pole is loaded only in compression, there’s no external sideways force. If the pole is stiff, such as larger-diameter CF tube, it can be thin-walled and light, but it can still resist the compression well.

The A-frame poles can be bent by the tent wall pressing on them, and the compression acting on the pole ends will only amplify this bending. Having two poles instead of one doesn’t help much, it’s the single pole on the windward side that would get bent.

Also, two thinner poles weighing the same as a single stronger one would be much more flexible. Moreover, they would have to be longer than the center pole.

Hi Dan,

Thanks. I’d love to support Ruta Locura, and would go that route, but I’m looking at three sets of A-frame poles, so am thinking that it would be worth my while to tackle the learning curve of MYOG and save quite a bit of money.

Jan,

I follow your reasoning. I think that, in all three pyramids I’m looking at, I can avoid the fly pressing into the poles, through various means. It’s hard to work out what type of stress the poles in this configuaration will face. In general, if the pole bottoms are fixed, A-frame poles should also be stressed almost entirely in compression if they are not getting bent by some force other than tension on the fly (such as the fly). However, if the windward panels are deflected significantly, pulling the apex of the shelter toward the windward side, the situation might be different. But, in general I think you’re right that the poles probably can’t be thinner/weaker than a single vertical pole, or maybe only a little bit.

So I may go with the diameter recommended by MLD and Ruta Locura for vertical center poles. So two poles will be heavier than a single one, no doubt, but the weight of two dedicated poles will still be significantly less than two trekking poles with extensions. I’m not a habitual trekking pole user.

One issue with MYOG poles is adhesive allowance. It seems that most people order up some pole stock, say 12mm OD, 10mm ID and then one size smaller; 10mm OD, 8mm ID in this case; and cut the thinner pole into short sections to be ferrules, then epoxy those into the ends of the larger poles to make joinable sections for a longer pole. But it seems that it’s recommended to have some allowance for the epoxy, so ferrules sold for this purpose are usually a little smaller in diameter than the ID of the main pole sections. If sourcing pole stock from the usual suspects online – on eBay or Aliexpress – slightly thinner poles that provide this adhesive alowance are not readily available. Not sure how important this is, really. JCH, who linked his thread on the MYOG poles he made above, doesn’t mention any such allowance. I suppose one could sand down the inner ferule poles to create that little gap, but I’m not excited about sanding carbon fiber; the dust is pretty bad news for health.

In my post Brian B posted a chart of weights for a 1M section. Looking only at the 1mm thickness sections, there is only a couple grams weight increase for a 1mm increase in OD. I’m guessing the weight increase between 12mm OD and 15mm OD would be minimal and you’d have a bullet proof pole set.

re: gluing in the ferrules, I found the IDs to be somewhat inconsistent (Roger suggested why this is), so some ferrules were tight, others loose. As mentioned in my OP, I just sanded the ODs of the ferrules to achieve the desired fit. FWIW I have had zero issues with my poles including the strength of the ferrule gluing.

I have a pair, although I’m not sure if they are the Six Moons ones or the ones TarpTent sells (or used to sell). They are similar weight, in any event.

I’ve used the poles, a lot, and never had a problem. I never tightened them down enough to get a flex (I think that would take some effort). I can flex them by hand, but that is true of every tent pole I’ve ever used. I would feel far less comfortable with a curved carbon fiber pole than I would a straight one, just because of the nature of the forces involved. Yet I think that is pretty common (my guess is lots of people buy this tent, for example, and are quite happy with it, despite the fragile pole design).

I think it is far more likely that I’ll screw up, and fail to properly secure my pegs/stakes than it is the pole will fail. I pile rocks on top when it is really windy, but maybe not enough rocks. A sudden, unexpected squall could catch me unaware, and things would be a mess. One nice thing about those types of tents though. If you screw up (say, by stepping on your pole and breaking it) it is much easier to fashion a new one (it is essentially just a stick or two holding up the thing).

I’ve decided to make a set of stupid light a-frame poles for a 135cm high octagonal shelter. Using 10mm x 8 mm carbon tubing, I expect that 170cm a-frame poles will come in at a combined ~6 ounces. My goal was to replace two trekking poles at the weight of one, so this will about do it.

It will be interesting to see how stable the a-frame is. 10mm OD poles is just a little thinner than the ~11.4mm ones that MLD use for their 140cm-high Duomid, so they may be OK. But my plan is to cut the sections such that I can remove one section from each leg of the A-Frame and end up with a pair of 10mm poles of 135cm height that can be lashed together and used as a center pole in “storm mode.”

Either the a-frame will suprise and be adequate for all conditions, or I’ll break it down and move the poles to the center if the wind picks up. MLD sell a 12.5 mm pole for their 175cm tall Supermid; two 10 mm poles combined should be stronger still, I hope.

I’ll report on results in MYOG.

Thanks for all the great responses!