AndrewMilne
26th March 2024, 01:35 PM
This post is an excerpt from a much longer one in "WA Reports", in the TRIPS, TRACKS and SCHEDULES Forum.
I thought I would submit it separately here, to make this particular topic easier to find.
The attached picture shows my D2a with a flag to improve vehicle visibility in sand-dunes.
I have never used one of these before, but recently did a trip where it was sensible to have one.
I made this one myself, as I thought that commercially available ones were a bit expensive.
This explains how I went about it, in case others are interested in doing the same.
I searched for fibreglass rod / tubing and found that a certain common hardware store beginning with "BU" has hollow fibreglass GARDEN STAKES with an outside diameter of 15 mm.
These are 1.8 metres long and cost $6 each.
To join the two sections (to make 3 metres or more), I used a sleeve of 20 mm O.D. orange electrical conduit that I already had.
The separate components are shown in one of the attached images.
The longer piece of 25 mm O.D. orange conduit I attached to the vehicle roo-bar, simply using sturdy cable ties (7.6 x 370 mm).
Orange corrugated cable sleeving fills the slight gap between the inside of the conduit and the base of the fibreglass rod, giving a snug fit.
A short piece of wooden broom handle fastened inside the bottom end of the 25 mm conduit stops the rods falling through.
The shorter piece of 20 mm O.D. conduit has an I.D. of about 15 mm, and serves as a union to connect the two poles end-to-end.
Several turns of insulating tape on the ends of the rods make for a snug fit in the connecting sleeve.
Holes drilled through both the sleeve and the housed fibreglass rod (while assembled) allow wire pins to be inserted right through, then bent, to prevent them from separating.
I used red and white plastic flagging instead of a fabric flag.
The flagging flutters in the breeze and when the vehicle is moving.
This is remarkably effective at catching the eye.
The last image shows the assembled flag staff before attaching to the vehicle.
Cheers,
Andrew Milne
I thought I would submit it separately here, to make this particular topic easier to find.
The attached picture shows my D2a with a flag to improve vehicle visibility in sand-dunes.
I have never used one of these before, but recently did a trip where it was sensible to have one.
I made this one myself, as I thought that commercially available ones were a bit expensive.
This explains how I went about it, in case others are interested in doing the same.
I searched for fibreglass rod / tubing and found that a certain common hardware store beginning with "BU" has hollow fibreglass GARDEN STAKES with an outside diameter of 15 mm.
These are 1.8 metres long and cost $6 each.
To join the two sections (to make 3 metres or more), I used a sleeve of 20 mm O.D. orange electrical conduit that I already had.
The separate components are shown in one of the attached images.
The longer piece of 25 mm O.D. orange conduit I attached to the vehicle roo-bar, simply using sturdy cable ties (7.6 x 370 mm).
Orange corrugated cable sleeving fills the slight gap between the inside of the conduit and the base of the fibreglass rod, giving a snug fit.
A short piece of wooden broom handle fastened inside the bottom end of the 25 mm conduit stops the rods falling through.
The shorter piece of 20 mm O.D. conduit has an I.D. of about 15 mm, and serves as a union to connect the two poles end-to-end.
Several turns of insulating tape on the ends of the rods make for a snug fit in the connecting sleeve.
Holes drilled through both the sleeve and the housed fibreglass rod (while assembled) allow wire pins to be inserted right through, then bent, to prevent them from separating.
I used red and white plastic flagging instead of a fabric flag.
The flagging flutters in the breeze and when the vehicle is moving.
This is remarkably effective at catching the eye.
The last image shows the assembled flag staff before attaching to the vehicle.
Cheers,
Andrew Milne