Make Your Own Gear: Carbon Fiber Trekking Poles

Complete instructions for making your own SUL carbon trekking poles from fishing, golf, and kite parts.

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Although most of us don't count it as part of our base weight, a lightweight set of trekking poles can easily shave a half pound or more off your total carry weight when compared to telescoping trekking poles. Backpacking Light's Make Your Own Gear forum group discussed various materials for do-it-yourself poles last year, so we tested these ideas out and present our findings here. Two different shaft materials were tested: extruded carbon kite rods and carbon golf shafts. These were combined with commercially available replacement Leki trekking pole tips and foam fishing pole fore grips. Along with the instructions for making your own, I discuss the merits of each shaft material. This is a very simple do-it-yourself project.

ARTICLE OUTLINE

Introduction
- Specifications for carbon kite rod and foam grips
- Specifications for carbon golf shafts rod and foam grips:
Sourcing materials
Building your poles
Performance

# WORDS: 1680
# PHOTOS: 16
# TABLES: 3

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Viewing 5 posts - 1 through 5 (of 5 total)

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May 8, 2007 at 6:49 pm #1223153

Benjamin Smith
BPL Member

@bugbomb
Locale: South Texas

Companion forum thread to:

Make Your Own Gear: Carbon Fiber Trekking Poles

Nov 12, 2008 at 1:41 pm #1458702

Noel Hong
Member

@arborrider08
Locale: SouthShore of Lake Superior

Recycled a set of ancient X/C racing poles that were gathering spider webs and dust into trekking poles. Exel Avanti from the late '80s. Almost 100% carbon with a real nice Kevlar wrap. Dense wrap at the tip that thins out to an open weave by mid shaft. Total weight including the tips and original relatively heavy grips is 260gm/pair for the now shorten 110cm trekking poles. Cost in this case $0.00.

Exel & Swix use to and might still have a one season replacement warranty. Larger nordic ski shops usually have a number of high end shafts that have been returned for warranty exchange. Should be able to find suitable lengths. For a friend who use to own a shop the shafts became a waste disposal issue. Another inexpensive source are ski swaps. Used poles have minimal value. Most I've ever sold a set was ~$50.

Wrap some masking tape then saw to eliminate any splintering. Hot glue the grips and tips for easy replacement when needed.

Feb 9, 2009 at 8:05 pm #1476664

Joe Geib
BPL Member

@joegeib
Locale: Delaware & Lehigh Valleys

Jay,

How tight were the grips on the shaft before you glued them in place? Were they loose, and the glue filled in the gap, or did they fit snug, but the glue held them in place?

I have a choice between 2 different grip sizes. Thanks.

Jan 30, 2011 at 4:40 pm #1690272

James Buster
BPL Member

@weejub
Locale: North Carolina

Hi all – new guy here – love the site and everyone's efforts!

I was inspired by the post to MYOG some poles today using a couple golf shafts, some golf grips and a couple Black Diamond tips. My 8-yr-old daughter and I did it after visiting the local Golfsmith.

We went with Grafalloy brand carbon fiber, stiff flex. Bought grip tape and some new camo-looking golf grips (Winn Hero – portion goes to a charity for wounded soldiers).

Used the golf grip two-way tape for both the grips and the tip. On the tip we measured the inside surface area and then staggered increasingly more narrow strips so as to get the right taper. We used standard lighter fluid to activate the tape for both the grips and the tips.

Total price: $17.99×2 shafts, $6.99 total for Black Diamond tips, $4.99 grip tape, $8.19×2 grips = ~$70.

I will weigh them tomorrow and show a pic if I can figure out how to do that.

Apr 12, 2015 at 4:09 am #2191260

Adam Kilpatrick
BPL Member

@oysters
Locale: South Australia

Old thread I know.

I've always been interested in producing a couple of these for myself. Been using trekking poles a lot in the last year and really getting a lot of benefit from them. Pretty settled on 111cm for bushwalking (much longer snowshoeing when I was in Japan, but I have my adjustable helinox' for that if I get the chance to do it here in Aus). I seem to like just sticking to 111cm up or down hill, the adjustability really gives me nothing apart from shelter use, but this length will also be fine for my gatewood cape.

ANYWAY TO THE POINT ADAM (no pun intended):

How much length do the leki type tips add once installed? Shopping online for shafts, want to make sure they are long enough (can shorten them if needed, but don't want to be looking for shaft…). I'm guessing somewhere around an inch???
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