At kayamedic’s advice, I’m thinking about making a foot brace bar from an aluminum telescoping tent/tarp pole. Is there a trick to this like filling the part I don’t want deformed with sand? Heat it? Simply squish it in a vise? I doubt the pole is made from anything exotic.
Thanks.
no trick
Just squish it in a vice. Or if you’re really desperate you can do what I did last time when I wasn’t around a vice, lay the end on a cinder block and beat it flat with a hammer.
Alan
Alan’s right. It will crimp locally
without any internal support.
I have squished a bunch of them
and I find the best way is to move it slightly in the vise as you go.
There is no problem squishing them. It is when you bend that squished end at a 90 degree angle that you can run into trouble with it cracking at each corner.
And there again, I move it slightly in the vise as I am bending it.
Old Tent poles, aluminum lawn and beach chairs, etc are all good and I keep a bunch for thwarts, foot braces and seat supports.
Jack L
I remember seeing some old crutches
put to good reuse in some pics posted here!
It didn’t seem to worry Moore when
they flattened the ends of tubing for thwarts and seat supports. The sides of the crimped tubing split, but it just never seemed to matter.