By: Steve K. Troop 106, Huntington NY

Steve K. Troop 106, Huntington NY — Wed, 17 Jun 2020 15:42:52 +0000

We built this at our last Troop mtg. Using 2″dia x 8ft long Tree Stakes, from Lowes. I decided to use 4, to reduce the load on each stake, and I thought it would look better. I used 4 Rolling Hitches at the Flag Pole bttm and Hockey Tape for friction. I started with and decided against the Masthead Knot, because it wasn’t fitting right. The flagpole was the typical Scout Stave one with the Halyard shown in that post. We used Taught Line Hitches, which worked well for minor adjustments for tilting and raising higher off the ground. I used two separate ground stakes (Orange ones from Lowes, 8 total) for the upper and lower guylines, ‘was intending to turn them into 1-1 anchors, but they were holding well as individual anchors. An additional guy line was needed for some of the tree stakes, as I wasn’t able to get them hammered (using a Fence Post Hammer) as deeply as necessary. Finally, I simply used Carabiners for pulleys with a Rolling Hitch on a Bight to mount them, worked fine, no issues. I recommend one person is the middle holding the flagpole, and one person at each corner making the adjustments to raise it. We had the 4 outer spars about 10-12ft apart, and it seemed like 25-30ft of guy line rope would be fine for all 8 guy lines.

General Comment: This is a ‘tricky’ setup, but it worked out great, was very cool to look at, ‘was fairly stable, and very much do-able, with a few basic skills. Hopefully our troop will get better at this and set it up for the next district Camporee! Knowing how to tie a proper Rolling Hitch (and with a bight) is critical (which is simply a round turn then into a Clovehitch, the extra round turn needs to on the side of the applied load, up on bottom and down on the tops).

Good Luck, and Happy Pioneering!

Comments on: Skylon “Floating” Flagpole

By: Steve K. Troop 106, Huntington NY