I was recently able to build a carbon fiber tripod with some of the
left over raw material I had from a recent customer order. You see
I am in the advanced composite business. But unlike all the so
called thousand dollar high tech tripods we see on the market which
are built from consumer carbon fiber and cheap isophthalic
polyester resin, I made this one from military grade, high modulus,
structural carbon fiber and epoxy resin. The absolute strongest
combination you can achieve, save for maybe kevlar (which does not
possess as high a flexural modulus). Another difference is that
normal tripods are simply unidirectionally pultruded. I pulwound
these 3 tubes sizes, to improve their crush strength and cross
fiber properties. The tubes are 1/8-inch (top profile) to (centre
and lower profiles) 1/16-inch thick, and my guess is that they are
twice as string as a regular carbon fiber tripod of the same
thickness material. If someone could lend me their Gitzo or Bogen
to test in a destructive flexural strength test, I would be glad to
prove my point. I tested these to 300,000 psi. Normal aluminum
will go the about 60,000 psi flexural strength. I pulled these on
an energy optimized mandrel with a RET (Rapid Energy Transfer)
device which conducts heat 1,000 times faster than a regular steel
mandrel, which cured the resin from the inside and not just the
outside, giving an extremely high 98 percent degree of
polymerization (for maximum strength), and to finish it off I post
cured the material as it came out of the die. Finally I mounted
these on an old Velbon (aluminum jointed) attachments which I
salvaged from an old tripod, with a two part heat cured epoxy for
the ultimate bond!!! I had to match the outside diameters of the
carbon fiber tubes to the Velbon Attachments. Finally, I coated
the profiles with a super black body heat and light absorbing paint
to eliminate reflections from the structure to the camera lense.
And mounted a 360 joint system (for my tripod head) that we sell to
the boating and recreational industry. Total cost less than 50
bucks. Stronger than any tripod in the world. BTW I got my Ph.D.
in heat transfer and processing of Graphite-Epoxy Pultruded
Composites. Don't try this at home.
Thanks for reading.
--
Sincerely,
Y. Chachad
Shoot The World
http://www.pbase.com/eastrace
