Well, the Bimini frame may not be structural in that it does not hold the
mast up but it gets grabbed, pulled on braced against and bashed into fairly
regularly. When going forward in a swell that one hand for you can put a
lot of pressure on the Bimini frame. A good stiff wind can put a lot of
pressure on it too. When you are miles from help in a rising sea you don't
want to risk getting skewered by a broken piece of PVC.

Courtney needs to lengthen both the bows and the legs. That will take 3
splices on each bow two of which will be hard to hide. I don't think that
several duct taped chunks of PVC will help the apearance of a Rhodes Bounty.

"Parallax" wrote in message
Y'all sure do things the hard way. A bimini frame is not structural
so serious strength is not an issue. So, arrange so that the cut is
either hidden by the bimini cloth or is easily available. Find some
PVC tubing that fits over your SS tubing. Use a suitable length slid
over the ends of the tubing. Either pop rivet it or simply use duct
tape to secure teh PVC to the SS tubing. If you wanna git fancy, you
can even get silver spray paint for the PVC. You might also consider
sliding a wooden dowel (or maybe a smaller piece of PVC into the SS
tubing.