Do all carbon poles leave you with black, grubby hands?
The ones I use are from Ionics and are fine apart from this one major gripe.
I use a rather expensive carbon pole to fish with and that doesn't leave me with dirty hands so is it just us window cleaners being left with a crappy finish on our poles???
Mr gardiner, if you're on here tonight, please explain why wfp carbon poles don't have the same finish as my nice fishing pole.
Cheers
Fishing poles are constructed very differently to telescopic poles. It is the effects of constant abrasion that will be producing black dust from your telescopic pole whatever it's make. If you have a pure carbon telescopic pole that is not yet producing dust it is either because it is too new or that it is not used much (as in a high level pole). When used repetitively with constant adjustments then the abrasion will produce dust.
'Put together' poles such as fishing poles or our Super-Lite modular pole do not produce black dust in the same way and keep their nice finish that they come with. When assembled as a telescopic pole the surfaces slide up and down each other - introduce some grit and dirt and the surface gets worn off. It is possible to have a nice glossy finish on these poles, some firms' poles have a glossy ridged finish and our early SLXs had a glossy smooth finish and the next ones had a glossy ridged finish. What happens to the glossy finish is that it quickly wears off and you are back to the same standard carbon material. This glossy finish is actually just an epoxy matrix finish that is left from the manufacturing process - it is not actually as tough as the carbon material itself. Too thick a glossy finish will also add weight to the finished pole.
Some manufacturers have a glossy painted finish on their carbon poles, but this usually starts wearing off in just a couple of weeks and looks awful once it starts peeling - paint is a lot less hard wearing than carbon.
The new SLXII does have several methods employed to help slow the rate of wear, which should help with this - however this cannot be eliminated completely unless you change the material used, such as in a hybrid pole and then you lose rigidity.
What can be done to control such production of black dust? The first thing is to wear gloves at all times, even just disposable gloves are a good idea. This also helps with general hygiene. The second thing is to clean/wipe the pole hose after each use as you coil it away in the van. The third thing is to keep the pole flushed through regularly with a hose pipe - once a week minimum is needed and should only take a minute to do. This should be done from new and will help prolong the life of the pole greatly. The fourth thing is to strip the pole down completely every three months or so and clean, dry off and spray with a dry-film lubricant.