I am thinking about making a square trellis on which the apple tree “Shinano Gold” can grow its branches. In my design, four steel pipes are connected at the corners. In order to make like that, I had bought four clamps for steel pipes whose diameter is 25.4 millimeter. But yesterday I realized that the clamp didn’t fit the phi 25.4 mm (1in) pipe. It seemed that the clamp was made to be compatible to both phi 22.2mm(7/8in) and phi 25.4 mm (1in) pipe. Probably the clamp can fit for phi 22.2mm pipe. But for 25.4 mm pipe that I have, its flange gets angle and bolt cannot go into the threads. That means pipes cannot be connected at the four corners of the trellis.
I remembered that there are another phi 31.2 mm (5/4in) steel pipes on the shelves of the DIY shop. I expected that a clamp for 31.2 mm might be able to fit my 25.4 mm pipes. So, I got on a local train in this morning, to go to the DIY shop in the town next to my village. In the store, I checked whether or not 31.2 mm clamp can grip 25.4 mm pipe. But I was disappointed by the fact that the clamp is too big to grip and fix 25.4 mm pipe. I saw the price card. Just one clamp costs three hundreds and some JPY (about 2.5 USD), which I thought expensive. I came to think that using clamps for my trellis was a kind of excessive quality too much. I left the DIY shop without buying any clamps. I wasted time and money for trains.
When I got back home, I tried thinking to other ways to connect two steel pipes at right angle. Actually, the problem has not been solved yet. I am still thinking to find a good way. Probably I will get a better answer tomorrow.
Agony or Fun?! Second Language Learning 