Background.
On a recent expedition around the South Island back country of ZL, I was deploying & redeploying my mast up to 4 times a day, some of it in torrential rain. Naturally water found its way into the inside of the mast. It’s easy enough to drain excess water out but not the wind blown grit. This leaves the mast difficult to deploy the next day the problem being that it is hard to clean the inside of each barrel even when it’s completely disassembled.
Answer.
A trip to the local firearms shop complete with mast in hand solved the problem. I bought a rifle bore cleaning kit, each pull through cleaning all but the topmost section with very little effort.
It takes me about 10 minutes to clean it completely.
Result
The mast now deploys easily without the gritty feeling. Note: Don’t use the wire brushes. They could scratch the inside of the barrel.
10 Likes
Very good advice, Rick.
Keeping the sections clean and grit free also prevents collapses as the grit does not have as much friction as smooth surfaces.
73 Andrew VK1DA/VK2DA
1 Like
With the pole disassembled, I clean the inside of my mast sections by carefully pushing a piece of paper kitchen towel through using the next (smaller) section of pole. The top section cannot be cleaned, but it shouldn’t have anything up there as it is closed at the top and only the outer surface makes contact with the next section.
5 Likes
If my pole gets grit in I wash it in the bath (disassembled) and then make sure it is fully dry before putting it back together.
3 Likes