I am in the process of building a 30 foot guyed tower using Octahedron modules.
It is based on the 70s Wind Works plans for a free standing tower.
I decided to cut my teeth on a simpler guyed tower be for building a free standing.
Things are panning out nicely I have the first 10 foot section done. The vertical struts are 3/4 inch
emt conduit and the horizontal triangles are inch and ½ angle iron 1/8 inch thick. With 2inch long
an inch and a ½ wide 3/16 thick tab welded to the corners .
The thing that gets me is how strong this thing is and a ten foot section is held together with
only nine 5/16 bolts. And weighs in at 41 pounds.
It's a odd looking beast and at certain angles it looks crooked as a dogs hine leg.
Even tho its straight.
.
A ten foot section consist two five foot modules and each module contains six vertical struts.
The conduit is flatted at each end an inch and a1/2 back .
I put the press together with odds an ends in the shop an a two ton bottle jack. It has a depth stop so I don't have to measure every flat just slide it in till it hit the stop an go. The flats are off set at 60o so they will line up with the tabs on the triangles.
The struts are done in three pairs. With a strut pair you will have one left hand and one right strut. You flatted one end of the conduit then turn it around.
In the photo you will see the angle gage I use to do this the V is 120o angle so for a right hand strut you place the flat on the right hand side of the V this set the angle at 60o the other end is
set in the press to the depth stop and flatted . For a left hand strut you put the flat on the left
hand side of the V.
Don't try to eye ball this been there done that and wasted conduit the gage make it easy.
The photo shows a left and right hand strut in the press I only flatten one at a time as the depth stop is only wide enough for one at time .
This photo show the guide to mark the bolt holes on the flats.
It's a tab for the triangles its 2 inches long and a inch and ½ wide.
I measured back an inch an ½ And marked the center of inch an a1/2 square.
Then drilled a hole I used this to mark the holes for the tabs and the flats.
Here is the angle gage
A horizontal triangle.
Here is where I am at for now next is the tower top section that will taper to a six inch triangle at the top.
Have so much fun it should be illegal
