Glulam Utility Pole

Glulam utility poles are quite common up here in Montana, and are often used in situations where standard round poles don’t work because there isn’t room for guy wires.  I need a few on my layout and decided to try my hand at building one this afternoon.  This pole will be used to make a 90 degree turn in a high voltage phase that bypasses the substation in Denton.  

I started by laying and staining several strips of 2x12 scale lumber that I got from Fast Tracks.  Once the strips were stained I cut them to length.  The main pole will be 72’ tall.  I have three strips at this length, and then each succeeding strip is 10’ shorter to allow the pole to have a taper.

I Glued the strips together with Elmers Wood Glue.  Once the glue dried I used a farrier rasp to file down the tapered side to give it a smooth face.  After sanding, the pole was given one more quick coat of stain.

The insulators are made out of leftover parts from Walthers’ High Voltage Transmission Tower kit.  They were painted with Testors Aluminum paint and glued in place.  I drilled the end of each insulator out so that I can string EZ-Line through them.