Boat cover anti-pooling pole repair

[huttcraft]

My anti-pooling poles didn't survive winter 14-15, when the 4 feet of snow and ice on my canvas garage brought the works down on top of the boat. The pole caps broke, poking holes through the mooring cover.

Actually the poles and webbing are fine. It's the plastic pole caps that didn't make it. The webbing broke the slots in the caps, leaving sharp edges. The dealer doesn't sell this part separate from a complete $100 pole set.

Anyone have any ingenious solutions? I have seen others in the forums discussing these caps as the weak link in the pole system but so far I haven't seen any great fix ideas. Nor have I found something similar to buy. I would like to keep the general geometry of the webbing and avoid exposing my (repaired) cover to sharp edges.

Grateful for any suggestions.

Dave

 

[Coastiejoe]

How about a cane or crutch end.

I would slice open a tennis ball and slip it over the broken plastic..

 

[xintersecty]

I would give poppy covers a call. She might be able to get a pole on the cheap. BTW I got my cover there and they were very nice to me (phone).

Otherwise use 5mm plywood and make you a new top with holes for the straps and you can glue right on the the plastic. The make the holes at least 1/2 away from the edge on strength.

 

[Coastiejoe]

Good point,, anyone that does covers will likely have something.

 

[Mudnman]

Cut and glue plexiglass ,maybe double it up and sand a nice smooth edge.3-D print one?My vote is try poppy.

 

[rcguy]

Lost one of my end covers. I bought a Poppy cover for my Challenger. Called Poppy and they sent me two and would not let me pay for them. The lady in customer service suggested I silicone the plastic ends to the poles. Great company and best fit cover ever.

 

[huttcraft]

Thanks for your comments all. I will give Poppy a call. I have heard great things about their covers and service, which if anything makes me reluctant to call since I don't want them to feel I'm taking advantage. This is the stock Seadoo cover that came with my boat. Hopefully they'll sell me a couple of caps anyway.

Dave

 

[CSager]

I just fixed mine the other day and it works great! Head to the local hobby shop pick up some slow cure epoxy I used BSI 30 min and some med weave fibreglass cloth. Assemble the the top and glue with the epoxy make sure your webbing straps don't get to much on them let that cure overnight. Then sand the top of the button and over your broken areas cut the glass cloth to the same size right up to the straps warm up the epoxy in a cup of hot water so it makes it thinner mix equal amounts in a cup put some on the top of the button lay the cloth down then more epoxy on top work it onto the weave and let it set overnight. You can also add a couple of drops of acrylic hobby paint when mixing so you can't see the cloth. Cost me 6 bucks instead off 100 and super strong.

 

[huttcraft]

Hi CSager -- that sounds like a smart solution but in my case most of the broken bits are long gone. When the snow and ice came down on the cover the pole caps seem to have exploded. Also my poles had been broken in the past, before I got the boat, and poorly repaired with bailing wire replacing the missing bits.

I decided to get new caps 3D printed in ABS. I mocked-up a version of the cap in Google Sketchup on the weekend and have been dealing with a local guy offering 3D printing services. My caps are almost 1/4" thick across the top so hopefully that will improve the strength. Here's the drawing and a picture of the result, received this morning:



Here's a link to the Sketchup file if anyone wants to tinker: http://goo.gl/JQ0I4z. Note that the drawing is scaled at 10x larger than actual in order to get the details right.

The only critical dimension is the inside diameter of the hole so it will sleeve properly onto the 3/4" diameter pole. Evidently ABS shrinks somewhat during printing, so even though my drawing was right the first printed version resulted in a .72" hole and had to be redone.

Dave