Utility poles

[cnw1961]

Bored? Looking for new challenges? Make your own utility poles!

On my last lyout I used plastic poles made by Rix. They looked quite nice, but somehow the plastic poles did not look right. So I decided to do my own wooden poles. First I thought of using the Rix crossarms, but plastic crossarms on a wooden pole? Naw...

I started by cutting this 1/8" skewer down to a length of 5".



Next I sanded the upper half to make it a bit thinner than the bottom.



To make it easier to glue the croosarm to the pole, I cut a little groove close to the top of the pole.



The crossarm is a little piece of .040" stripwood. I cut it to approx. 1 1/4" x 1/16".



Then I glued the crossarm to the pole and stained the utility pole with thinned india ink. The next pic shows the pole with the first insulator already attached. That’s where the fun begins.



To make the insulators, I used a round .040" styrene rod and cut off little pieces of about .080".



Then, holding a insulator with a pair of tweezers, I dipped one end in super glue and placed the insulator on the crossarm. I tell you, after placing the third insualtor on the crossarm, you’ll start to squint .

For the supports of the crossarm I cut a .030" strip of .013 styrene. I used plastic cement to glue the supports to the pole.



Well, here it is.



Having seen this, I’ll bet you can think of better ways to waste your time .