Yeah just biked past a pile of scrap steel at my sisters and there amongst all the other crap was a piece of galvanized pipe . It was a part of a greenhouse at one time so it has a male and female ends. Looks like it'll work. I'll let ya'll know. Looks like the female section needs to be twice as long as the male with the male being 2" or more. I'm thinking with steel you could get away with 2".
I bet the thicker walled copper pipe would do it, its just awful pricey anymore. 26 bucks for a 4 foot section of 1 1/4"stock.