Repairing Kelty Trekking Poles

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Carl_Healy
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Repairing Kelty Trekking Poles

Post by Carl_Healy »

A friend of mine purchased some Kelty Trekking Poles (not sure the model) off of Facebook Marketplace for cheap (like $20) only to find that the twist lock mechanism wasn't functioning on one of the poles.
They decided to just give the poles to me and purchased other poles.

After this I disassembled the broken pole and quickly traced the problem to what I'll term a broken plastic "split ring."
Broken Kelty Poles
Broken Kelty Poles
IMAG3848_Cropped.jpg (61.5 KiB) Viewed 1132 times
I'm sure if I could replace that little plastic part function would be restored, but I haven't had the best luck so far.
I'd like to attempt this repair since it seems so trivial, then... hey... free poles assuming my friend doesn't want them back.

Contacting Kelty Customer support thus far they've said there isn't anything they can do and instead refered me to Quest Outfitters because I am guessing that:
  1. Quest Outfitters might be a supplier that manufactures tents that Kelty then brands as their own
  2. The customer service representative I'm talking to keeps thinking that I'm talking about TENT poles not TREKKING poles despite my efforts to clarify this point...
I'll update this if the customer service efforts actually end up working but beyond that I'm not sure what to do.

I've thought about visiting Kelty's location in Broomfield in person but it appears that location is actually "Exxel Outdoors" (who owns Kelty amongst other brands) and from Google Street View I see that visitors are expressly discouraged.
Maybe I could contact Exxel directly...

I know a bit about manufacturing so I just know that somewhere, wherever these poles are manufactured, there's a big plastic bin full of these yellow plastic rings that I'd happily pay for. I mean really one of those things can't cost more than a few cents?

Any thoughts?
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If you can't walk, you crawl
If you can't crawl, you find someone to carry you
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dwoodward13
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Re: Repairing Kelty Trekking Poles

Post by dwoodward13 »

If you can reverse engineer it and get some measurements off it, many of the local libraries have 3D printers and they will print your stuff for free! There are also several free CAD programs out there to draw the part. My local library you just upload the file to their website and they will send an email to you when its done and you can come pick it up.
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Carl_Healy
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Re: Repairing Kelty Trekking Poles

Post by Carl_Healy »

dwoodward13 wrote: Mon Oct 11, 2021 7:29 pm If you can reverse engineer it and get some measurements off it, many of the local libraries will print your 3D parts for free! There are several CAD programs out there for free you can draw one up in and export it.
I actually had thought about this! But I haven't touched any CAD software in many years...

Though actually... I might be able to use my company's 3-D printer when I visit our manufacturing facility in California next week.

But I'm not sure if it'll function the same way as the material will undoubtedly be subtly different. Maybe that won't matter.
If you can't run, you walk
If you can't walk, you crawl
If you can't crawl, you find someone to carry you
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