Tex-

Yes you are right I didn’t know if anybody was paying attention enough to catch my flip on that idea. I was wordy enough so I zoomed past that idea. But now that you asked I found that the carpet rolls varied in diameter and wall thickness and it amounted to dumpster diving. I’m not beyond that but I had two other factors that changed my mind rather quickly:

1.What I need is to be able to reproduce what I make. If it was just a one-off tube no problem. Everything except the boom goes into sleeves - so if one was to break I need make a replacement to fit in the “built in” sleeves. If I use a process that is easily reproducible then when Mr. Murphy strikes it is more of a damn - then a full riot.

2. The shrink tubing available is 3.1-inch or 5.9-inch diameter currently the 4-inch size is not available and no date on the deliverable. Most carpet tubes seemed to be just around the maximum shrinkage limits of the 5.9-inch tube where the results could very and not always reliable - where “test it” is the recommendation. With the price of braided carbon tubing I did not like the “test it” option and followed the recommendations of the composite supplier. My design specifications of the plans call for a 4-inch forspar.

If I could find a good steady supply of 4” diameter cardboard tubes up to 17’ long I would go for it. The only option I found was to special order the tubes for a min of $900 set-up free plus a min order fee from a tube mill.