pics of my tower

[defed]

started assembling the 2 lower of the 3 sections of my 60' free standing tower.  the base section is pretty stout, with a fair amount of taper (4 1/2' spread at the base).  the next section is almost straight (couple inches of taper over 20').

at this time i plan to use just 2 sections (40') with a stub on the top (possibly up to 10').  the goal is to tilt it up.  each section weighs between 400 and 500 pounds.

this thing was a heck of a deal.  it was never assembled, most of the parts were still in the original crates/bags.  $600 total, including paying a guy to help me w/ his 20' trailer!

still have to do the calcs for how much concrete i need for the base and the amount of force needed to tip it from the ground.

[Jerry]

Thats a buityfull tower, pictures make you just want to give it a hug LOL.

                         Jerry

[tanner0441]

Hi

Did you put all the nuts and bolts in by hand or with a power wrench?  Either way very nice..............

Brian.

[defed]

thanks!

i did it all by hand.  the angle cross braced section was pretty easy, but the smaller section was brutal.  most of the holes were clogged w/ galvanizing...both in the legs and the cross braces.

[defed]

i forgot to mention that i didn't tighten the nuts yet.  wanted to figure out a way to make sure everything is square before i make it all secure.

[dnix71]

That's a lot of work so far.

If you are only going to use 2 sections maybe you could have someone make a plate with a hinge so the top half could be tipped up and down on it's own. It might be easier to service that way.

[defed]

i had actually thought about that....but i think it might be harder to tip one section like that than to tip the whole thing up.

[rossw]

Yes, quite so!  25 years ago, I did that to a 45 foot self-supporting tower (that I subsequently built around). We cut it just over half way up, welded in a hinge.

The base was attached to a 2 cubic metre chunk of concrete with lots of reinforcing. It was easy to stand up the bottom piece - we "folded" the tower in the middle and just walked it up. That was the deceptively easy part. Trying to then stand the tower up was a real drama - and this was a quite small and light tower by comparison to yours. I'd never do it again!

[img width= height=]http://house.albury.net.au/15dec2007/thumb.100_1764.JPG[/img]Getting it down required stripping everything off it (rather a lot of antennas), then using a winch and a "gin-pole" like arrangement with some timber beams.

[img width= height=]http://house.albury.net.au/15dec2007/thumb.100_1768.JPG[/img]This was the bottom half (the glass brick wall behind it is the top story of the two-story extensions we did after the tower was up - they quite litterally "built around" the tower)

This was after we'd removed the top section (which took quite some doing)

[img width= height=]http://house.albury.net.au/15dec2007/thumb.100_1770.JPG[/img]Just for scale.

[img width= height=]http://house.albury.net.au/03dec2005/thumb.MVC-877X.JPG[/img][img width= height=]http://house.albury.net.au/03dec2005/thumb.MVC-880X.JPG[/img]It wasn't a big tower, but even standing on the top of it in the pouring rain shows how far above the local roof it got you... (this was after a quite damaging storm had just been through)