I had one 1.5 m pole carrier supplied by the selling dealer and it was useless for MY needs. It did not hold all my poles and I had to dismantle my anti flap bars to fit them into the tube. I decided to have a pole tube built to suit MY requirements. My design is a 250 mm x 150 mm x 2.35 m box to replace the rear bumper on the SL.
-- Edited by Dickodownunder on Thursday 1st of February 2018 09:52:17 PM
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"Seek the truth or bury you head in the sand, both require some digging"
Thank you JayDee I am very happy with it. I almost mounted it flatwise under the van but then decided on the rear bumper option.
The picture probably makes it look a little bigger than it actually is because the file was too big to post the original picture.
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"Seek the truth or bury you head in the sand, both require some digging"
I have to ask, as I'm not sure who has what rig, but why the need to carry so many poles with you? I get anti flappers and the middle awning section but what else is there that requires so much additional carriage space specific to poles ?
That's part of the reason I went with a caravan, to get away from those pesky tarps and tent poles. I have a shed full of em.
Or are we talking fishing poles
-- Edited by denmonkey on Sunday 4th of February 2018 08:47:14 PM
The requirements for the pole carrier will depend on your on the road lifestyle.
We spend a couple of periods close to family members each year and for those extended times we like to have a full annexe as walls attached to our awning.
At other times I like to put the awning up unless we are only doing an overnite stay.
Those tube type Plastic Pipe carriers are less than adequate for my set up.
I have 2 anti flap combinations and 3 curved rafters. My annexe has 3 separate poles and I have two extra poles for a front tarp that doubles as an entrance awning for shade or if it is raining.
All these items just did not fit into the tube.
A round tube is not an efficient use of space for poles even if on the surface it seems that it will suffice.
With the old plastic pipe holder I had to dismantle the anti flap bars into 4 separate pieces as the assembled units were too long for the tubing.
That was not too much of a problem until the thread expander clamps become separated from the anti flap bar and you have to then try to reach into a piece of tubing to find those suckers. Not to mention that this meant removing all the other poles to gain access.
With the pole box pictured above the anti flap bars fit in without dismantling and all the other poles and curved rafters fit easily.
This eliminates the loss of the thread clamps that are part of the anti flap bars as these units are closed to their short length and tightened to maintain each half of each bar in its correct position.
This may seem an overkill but it means that the set up time for the awning is minimal and I now never have to search through a tube for the small parts.
Plastic is not secure as far as theft is concerned. It probably takes a bit more effort to cut through an aluminium box than to just break the end off a plastic tube.
My other option was that I stored all the poles in the front boot but this meant I had extremely poor access to the individual items unless I once again, pulled many items from the front boot to access what I needed.
The box I had made is not much bigger that a plastic tube but allows me to set up an awning or my complete annexe with minumum of fuss with the bars and poles.
At 150mm x 250mm it fits all the poles and I still have room for a broom and a car wash wand if I screw the heads off each of them.
Should have done it a lot sooner than I did...
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"Seek the truth or bury you head in the sand, both require some digging"
