Telephone Pole Options?

[Zox]

The ICRR bridge in Kankakee that I'm modeling has a row of abandoned telephone poles running along the east side:



I have a package of the "standard" Atlas phone poles, and they're too small for this application: they're not tall enough from the base to the bottom crossarm, and they don't have enough pole above the three provided crossarms to match the prototype. (Judging by the nearest pole, it looks like there were once six crossarms per pole.)

Any recommendations, either on other brands of telephone pole or how to convincingly kitbash/scratchbuild a better version?

[POVC]

I'd scratch build, using wooden dowels and bass wood strips.  You should be able to find appropriate "sized" lumber at any hobby shop that does model airplanes.  Alternately you can use bamboo skewers that you find in the grocery store for the poles.

Tim

[up1950s]

Wooden skewers might be easier .

[ednadolski]

FWIW, Micro Mark sells a tool to draw down dowels to the diameter you want.

But does anyone know of a good way to make them with a taper?

Ed

[mmyers]

FWIW, Micro Mark sells a tool to draw down dowels to the diameter you want.

But does anyone know of a good way to make them with a taper?

Ed

Chuck them in a drill and spin. Pinch a piece of sandpaper around the "pole".  Increase pressure on the sandpaper while moving from the chuck to the end of the pole.

Martin Myers

[CoalPorter]

I would not use wood dowels because the diameter is too uniform. I would, instead, use  large size cocktail stir sticks (i.e. a martini olive stick). just my 2 cents anyway.

[Zox]

Chuck them in a drill and spin. Pinch a piece of sandpaper around the "pole".  Increase pressure on the sandpaper while moving from the chuck to the end of the pole.

Martin, that's a good idea. I can see two problems in this application, though. First, the diameter I'm working with (about 1/8 inch) is so small that I think the dowels would break under the side pressure from sanding. Second, I need to make five identical poles, and I don't think I could get the repeatability I need with that technique.

And thanks all for the suggestions. I've found something with a very subtle taper that's just the right diameter. Preliminary results look good:



I still have to cut the top to length, which will get rid of the rounded part.

Now to figure out how to do the cross-arms.  

Also, making small parts from MDF turns out to have its own problems. I managed to split four of the cutwaters in half while drilling the holes on my drill press. It's a good thing I made a whole bunch of extras...

[up1950s]

You don't put side pressure on the buggers , you wrap a piece of sandpaper around it , like folded without a crease . Then you squeeze the paper from both sides like you are trying to squish a worm . Don't use too much pressure because the paper will bite into the dowel and be whipped around the dowel like nobodies business , and you don't want to build up heat , and get a blister on your thumb and a nose picker at the same time .

[ednadolski]

How does this sound for a somewhat off-the-wall idea for a jig to to make a consistent taper:   Make two elongated, flat sanding blocks, each a bit longer than the length needed for a pole. Glue them onto a flat block of wood with the sanding surfaces facing each other, nearly parallel but at the angle for the desired taper -- basically a kind of elongated "V" shape, with the wide ends set apart by a distance equal to the pole base diameter, and the narrow end equal to the pole top diameter.  Chuck the needed length of dowel into the drill and, as it drill spins, work the dowel into the 'V' starting from the wide end.  Sort of like sticking a pencil into a pencil sharpener (except that the "pencil" is rotating).   Don't force feed to the point where the dowel might bind or break, or spin the drill so fast that things overheat.  By the time the dowel reaches the narrow end, it should be at the right taper.  Remove from the chuck and trim off the excess length.

I have no idea how that might work, if it works at all, but it might be worth a try.  A softer wood likely would be easier.  Of course, I wouldn't want to have to make dozens of 'em like that, but for foreground models, making a few might not be too much of a hassle.

Next question - after gluing on the crossarms & braces, what would be good to use for insulators? 

Ed

[Ian MacMillan]

I use the sticks from the wooden sterilized applicators....The ones the EMS crews have that look like wooden Q tips. They work out to just about the right width.

[CoalPorter]

"Next question - after gluing on the crossarms & braces, what would be good to use for insulators?  "

There was a guy at the GATS shows a few years ago doing a demo on making n scale tele-poles, and he was making the insulators out of some type of green glass epoxy- they looked great. He was painting a blob of  epoxy onto very small wire.

[Walkercolt]

Telephone poles (or in our case signal poles) aren't uniform at all! At least not around here. I use semi-crooked pecan "dead-fall" branches (you get lots of them from a big pecan tree), chuck them in the drill press at about the lowest speed and some 60 grit takes most of the bark off and leaves some of the "leaf bumps" like knots on a utility pole. Few of mine are close to "straight". I use my "magic elixer" of ooooold Griffin Brown liquid shoe polish and methanol to lighty stain them.
My cross arms come from Mickey D's coffee bar, their wooden stir sticks and a NWSL "Chopper". My clear green glass insulators are "seed beads"(in bluish green real glass) from Lyon's Indian Store downtown Tussa held on with " Devcon 5 minute Super Strength Epoxy" in the "twin syringes" from either Home Despot or Wally-World's paint dept. applied with a big (3") sewing needle with half of the "eye" cut-off with a Dremel. You get a "U" shaped tool that picks up just the amount of glue you want. I put a short 1/4" dowel rod for a handle, and to "keep track" of it. If you want a longer straighter pole, start with a bigger diameter branch.
 I have the "drawing bar" from Micro-Mark, and it works very well, but even sanding a taper onto the dowels you've made, they still look too uniform to me.
Had a new pole installed 2 years ago after the semi-famous ice-storm here, so a "40 foot" utility pole is actually 48' long and tapers from about 12-14" at the base to 8-9" at the top. You gonna see than in N-scale? PSO "plants" that pole about 6' deep (depending on the soil) so they are "nominally" 38-42 feet tall. BTW: The "modern" utility poles that are grey are pressure treated with a cement-like product and are nearly as hard as a sidewalk.
Good luck and good scrounging!