60 Ft Tower Is Up!

[freejuice]

Hi Everyone,

 For those interested in a 4inch schedule 40, 60 ft tower... I finally have it up!

 Hopefully you will be able to see the pictures below...if not just review my files 77-81I believe they are pics 77-81 or so.

I took a front shot of the gin pole guy wire connection points and the 7/8 shackle which pulls the gin pole down.....my main concern was the 1/2 shackle which held connected the 3 tower guy wires to the gin pole...one or two folks wre interested in this connection point so I included it after the ginpole was on the ground! )

I raised the tower about 75-80 degrees from vertical, then lowered it and put the alternator together and raised it. the only guys I had to adjust was the gin pole wires as I lowered the gin pole the guys wanted to tighten up..I gave them about 6 iches of slack and it went up smoothly from then on.

 The Dan's offer good advice....keep the hinge side guys about six inches back from the center of the pivot..the back guys came into tension nicely without too much tension or slack in teh cables...no violent erection...the gin pole's own weight pulled it the last few degrees of vertical to a soft landing...nice and smooth.

I noticed in my situation that having about 8-12 inches of "droop" in cable was ok...that was an unknown I feared...would may cables be too tight or too loose when I raised it?

 The cables needed some fine adjustment after it was upright, but it all went  smoothly...even when I transfered the gin pole/tower cables to the anchor point.

 Groan, my gin pole is under the reccomended lenght of half my tower height..the gin pole is more like a third of the lenght at 20 feet, for a 60 foot tower.

 The chain hosit did a swell job. I would pull it for about 30 seconds or so, stop and go and check all cables, go back and lift it another 7-10 degrees and repeat the innspection tour )

 When you have a tower on the ground it's one lenght but when it gets vertical, that puppy is up there!

 Thanks everyone for your fantastic advice and help...without you folks I could not have done it!

Oh, one more thing, that ford ranger tire (driver's side front), it looks like a spare...it is, the other week my tier got to close to the pivot base and a piece of I-beam punctured the side wall....groan, however that was a small price to pay for today's victory!

[fabricator]

Wow! looks good! In the first pic of the gin pole it looks like you have a dead horse saddled on the cable on the right side, its a temporary gin guy I know, just something you want to stay away from on the tower guys.

[freejuice]

Hi Fabricator,

 Thanks for the heads up.

 I will go out there and check that again...I was double checking everything to make sure this didnt happen....every cable has three cable clamps and I didnt want one dead saddle....groan

In the first photo of the gin pole, I had already removed two of the tower cables from thee gin and transfered them to the anchor point....if my gin pole was just a bit longer.... no transferring required other than anchoring down the gin pole very well.

The chin hoist does a good job, but it takes a while... especially when you are up and down with it several times throughout the day...a nice electric winch would be the cat's meow....I must begin my "haunt" on ebay.

 Soory about the photo quailty, it actually came from a cell phone camera which  takes great photos but when I reduce them they get that crappy look.

 All the best,

 Gavin

[Volvo farmer]

Nice work!

I know what you mean about horizontal steel being less impressive (scary) than vertical steel. Thanks for posting your experience. I'm more inclined to add 20' to my tower now!

[Ronnn]

Thank for the great photos of the gin pole. I'm only going to use a 20 foot gin pole too. In the first pic. I don't understand where side guys were going. The ones running parallel to the ground. Do they stay in place permanently? They must go out to the anchor points you discussed that are back from the center point of the pivot. Is that correct?

Ron

[fabricator]

No, those are temporary guys to support the gin pole when it's verticle.

[freejuice]

Hi Ronn,

 The side guys go out to each of the anchor positions along the axis of the hinge...at 60 feet I have the anchor points back about 6 inches from the center line of the hinge.. looking at the end view photo of the gin pole, the anchor postions would another 6 inches futher away from the hinge center line.

The Dan's really have the experience in their court when they mentioned this in their book.

 All the best,

 Gavin

[tecker]

I really like looking at these pics . 60' is one heavy mother .I love it.

[fabricator]

I order for the guys to come into tension as the tower is raised the anchors would have to be on the gin pole side of the pivot center line.

[youmanskids]

hey, congrats on your tower.  I hear you on the change in perspective once it's up-- they look alot taller up in the clouds!!   you did it right to have 4 inch all the way up (shouldn's have the flex problems I had), but the short gin makes it a little more labor intensive when you have to move the guys on the gin. if its the same length as the anchors, you just pull it down and anchor the end of the gin.  Putting the side guy anchor points 4-6 inches opposite the gin side does work great to tighten them just a little at vertical.  Looks great man, you do good work.  Roger

[fabricator]

Gawd what a brain fart! I was thinking about tensioning the guys on the gin pole.

[SparWeb]

I was wondering about that, too...

[freejuice]

Hi Fabricator,

I think everyone has a good point on centerline, opposite the ginpole centerline and forward of the gin pole centerline....I think you could get all three postions to come into tension if the cables were just short enough at the moment it goes into vertical.

 Tecker,

 the tower probably weighs in the neighborhood of 1400 lbs...just the steel not including guy wires, shackles etc etc.

Youmanskids,

Just had a thunder storm just as night fell, wind blowing rain falling like a frog strangler, and a tornado watch. The tower was weaving back and forth abut 5 degrees from vertical, the blades really pouring it on...however it never did go into full furl...so Im thinking the winds did not get that high, but it made the blades really move on...the weaving could be from the guys being a bit too loose...I want them tighter but I'm afraid a warm day vs a cold day will play havoc on wire tension due to thermal contraction or expansion...here is were i need more of that experience stuff....groan

I'm thinking I need to balance one just a little bit more... it was making a sound like "so so so so so so" about 3-4 times a second...I must confess I'm gulity of rushing the blade balancing and raising before night fell....and one blade was really heavier than the others, while I used white pine for the blades,; if anyone had picked each blade up seperately with out looking at the grain or wood type they would have thought one blade was a piece of heavy yellow pine. I will lower the tower this weekend and tweek it in.  

[youmanskids]

as far as tension,  my guys were hanging with about 18 inches of sag and bouncing alot during the storm.  I added a third set of guys (10 feet below the top set) and tightend up the other guys to about 6 inches (visual estimate and not precise by any means) of sag--  we'll see how that works and if it changes as the weather heats up.  I doubt a significant change due to temp.  the thermal coeffecient of expansion of the steel cable is prob negligable in our case.. but we'll see.  keep us all posted. Roger

[TomW]

skids;

You can kind of "tune" guys like a guitar or other string instrument.

They will have a similar sound or feel if the same length, size and tension.

Just a gimmick we used on radio towers for roughing in the install. Later they used fancy deflection gages to fine tune them.

Just another blast from the past.

Tom

[youmanskids]

that sound cool, I'll have to try in,  an A sharp maybe?  

[hayfarmer]

freejuice,thanks for the detailed pic,s.I am starting my tower build tomorrow,have decided to bolt on my gin pole to a stub piece welded to pivot,how did you attach you gin pole brace to tower if your gin pole is removable? thanks in advance.done fixing my holes  in hay fields after neighbors horses stomped holes in them twice last month.

[freejuice]

Hi Hay,

 I decided to weld the gin pole and brace in together. I decided to do this to save on time, after a few folks told me I might need a brace between the gin pole and tower. If you want yours removeable you could probably weld a piece of flat plate...say 1/2 inch thick and about 4-6 inches wide on each side of the gin pole and tower with a hole in each plate to bolt a piece of flat bar, thick wall square tubing etc etc.

maybe you could take a piece of flat bar or pipe on each side of the gin pole and tower and trap it in place with some robust bolts and with a brace in between the gin pole and tower...you could either weld the brackets or bolt them....personally I would not anything less than 5/8 diameter grade 8 or minimum grade 5 bolts to hold it all together especially on a tower the size I used.

 I feel the brace is almost a must, and welding it into postion really stiffened things up. with welding it does not move around much. On the 4 inch pipe I used a 2 inch piece of schedule 40 as the brace, it was about 6 foot long...everything worked out well.

 All the best,

 Gavin

[hayfarmer]

  Gavin,  thanks for the reply.I will weld on mine also,always like over building things,(don't like the things that go CRASH in the nite) will post pic,s as construction progress moves along.

Its great to have experienced second opinion's.

my tower wont need to be moved,and with a saws all ,torch ,welder I can make it move.