Portable mast support with SCAM12 legs

As I have two sets of SCAM12 pump-up mast legs, one original, and one set I made, I thought to might be useful to make a cage so I could use them with a 2 inch aluminium mast for when the 90kg of SCAM12 is too much to haul about.

SCAM legs being put to good use

Simple cage with 1 inch steel box sections to fit the SCAM legs

Turned pins and snap-rings to lock the legs in place

I didn’t have any 3/8 inch roll pins so used a bit of M8 threaded bar instead.  The cap bolt is to lock the cage in place during deployment.

The cage is just made from scrap I had kicking about in the machine shop.

At the top of the pole, I use a nice simple collar and slip-ring/guy plate arrangement.  This is for a base-mounted rotator of course

 

 

 

Measuring wire thickness with a ruler

One low-tech way to measure the thickness of very thin wire if you don’t have a micrometer is to use a ruler on a flat surface (sheet of glass maybe?),  and something of a known thickness several times as thick as the wire. (a drill or coin perhaps?).

Put the drill or coin on the flat surface and hold the ruler with one end on the it at the 300mm point and the other on the glass, so there is a very narrow triangular gap between the ruler and the surface. Slide the wire into the wide end of the gap and move it along towards the thin end until it sticks. Read off the distance on the ruler. Say it is 56mm and the coin is a newish 2p piece, which is 2.08mm thick.

The wire size is then 2.08 x 56 / 300 = 0.39mm.

Checking the wire with a micrometer shows an actual diameter of 0.375mm, about 4% error.