metal pole source for free

[blavard]

Garage door installers can be a free source of metal poles. The roll- up doors have a pole attached to the top of the door opening for the cable pulleys . The pole spans the width of the opening. Installers yank these when they replace the door. These look like emt conduit on steroids. They usually want them gone, so you can have them. You will have to remove the pulleys, and torsion springs, but for free, it's worth it.

[Elliot]

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Sounds like a great idea. Thank you. And welcome to ePlaya!

[blavard]

I used them to bolster up the cheap round legs on a shade structure. The original legs were small enough to slip inside the new poles, and still fit into the sockets.

[LionsNzebras]

Garage door installers can be a free source of metal poles. The roll- up doors have a pole attached to the top of the door opening for the cable pulleys . The pole spans the width of the opening. Installers yank these when they replace the door. These look like emt conduit on steroids. They usually want them gone, so you can have them. You will have to remove the pulleys, and torsion springs, but for free, it's worth it.

I happen to work for the only North American owned garage door manufacturer left. And were in Canada.

What you are describing is a SHAFT, it is solid steel with some notches cut into it, or it has 1/8th sliced out of one side to accommodate Left and Right springs.
They are SOLID shafts, and very heavy.

The reason they throw them away is because of the torque that has been placed on them for 100,000 cycles or more. They are NOT SAFE for garage door use any longer (in theory) but can be used for many many other things. I have about 8 of them in my shop in various lengths and uses.

Torsion springs are also very dangerous, they can kill you. We have had one installer die from a spring in 10 years mind you, but it has happened. There is some very serious forces behind a torsion spring.

Other than the torsion spring dangers the shafts can be used for many things, just dont trust them too too much!
If you cut them shorter, they are also much safer.

[blavard]

The ones I find here in southern california are hollow tubes. They get piled out back of the business, having been pulled by the person who installed the door. No problems with them being spring loaded. Come to think of it, I have another use for them as well: drove one down the inside of a chain link fence post that the neighbor brat bent almost to the fail point. Then I stuffed the post with concrete. Also, the old style hinged wooden doors have tension wires across the bottom. I've cut those up for light-duty stakes. Sharpen one end, and bend a short "L" on the other.

[Elliot]

I feel 90% certain my Clopay door came with a hollow shaft. (I did not use the shaft in the installation, and have since used it for who-knows-what, since I do not seem to have it.)

[Captain Goddammit]

Sometimes I use the stick as the wiggy wiggy and poles work for the jiggy iggy.

[LionsNzebras]

That's interesting, i will have to pass that on, ours are all solid shaft.

[Elliot]

To my (limited) knowledge, a round tube with reasonably thick wall has almost the torsional strength of a solid rod.
In fact, there are some applications where a piece of steel gains resistance to failure by drilling a hole thru the center, such as a race car crankshaft. From what (little) I understand, this is because a solid rod begins to break in the center, where there is no room for the steel to flex.
Perhaps somebody with real metallurgical knowledge can help us with this?