making a carbon fiber microphone stand


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Attila Faravelli
Attila Faravelli
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Hello, 
I'm a sound artist and part of my work consists in collecting sounds in the field. I hike a lot (even multi day hikes) and I'm starting to get rid of some backpack weight. I just built a microphone stand (not a boom pole) by joining a 1,5 m poltruded carbon tube (that I split in 3 parts) with 2 ferrules (aluminium I guess), external diameter of the tube is 6mm, internal 4mm. As for the tripod, I used 3 carbon rods, 3mm diameter, 50 cm. I cut from wood a small equilateral triangle and drill a 3mm hole angles 35 degrees close to every corner of the triangle and a 6mm hole in the center. The rodes go into the 3 angled holes and the tube in the central one. The tip of the tube and the tip of each rode are connected with a tent rope, when the same amount of tension is applied through the 3 ropes, the rods curve and tension the structure, which becomes pretty stable and very lightweight, like 80 grams total vs 1 kg of my usual manfrotto stand. 

That said, I accidentally destroyed 2 rodes in a fire door, they could not resist the slam! and have to substitute them. Still, I took it as a sign to improve my crazy design.. I guess I could do better by using less tiny diameter carbon tubes and rods. 

My questions are: 
I'd like the main tube to get up to about 2 meters this time and the poltruded 6mm tube that I used is too flexible, once the structure gets tensioned with the rope everything is fine but I'd like to have it a bit stiffer not to go crazy with a shaking structure till I balance it, so

should I use wrapped carbon tubes instead, with 10 mm internal diameter, 12,7mm external diameter? 
is the wrapped carbon that you sell less flexible than pultruded? the microphones are very lightweight (around 150 g each) and the structure will be used vertical most of the time (unlike a microphone boom pole which sustains the weight of the microphone horizontally). still when I'm on my trips I could use some more ruggedness...

What should I use as ferules? Would pultruded carbon tubes (10mm) be fine if used as internal ferrules or should I opt for some different joining solution (my backpack can fit max 50 cm, I have to split the tube and the rope system I use keeps everything together anyway. I see on the internet both internal and external joints, tent-tarp poles are my main reference point. I guess there's not such a big difference but I cannot understand wether poltruded internal ferrules are rugged enough.

Which kind of glue should I order from your website? I can see there's 2 which would work, one seems for more flexible structures, should I go for it??

I was thinking of ordering 5mm rodes, what I liked about the 3mm ones was that they would flex a lot, widening the base of my structure, still they were maybe too fragile. what should I go for for maximum flexibility strength (ability to return to their original shape? are rods fine or should I use small diameter tubes?

I apologize for the amount of questions but it's my first carbon fiber project and I could not find much on the internet, it looks like nobody cares about weight but sound operators for cinema which only use carbon fiber telescopic boom poles..

Thanks a lot!

Attila
Edited 9 Years Ago by Attila Faravelli
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