Tower pic

[freejuice]

 

Hi Everyone,

 I can add this photo, however just click on my  screen name name, then selct files to see the other two photos on my tower...for some reason I could not add them here.

 Each 4 inch section of sch 40 section has four of these guy wire connection welded to it...it will give me three guy wire posistions up the 600 ft length. Some wheere around 51-52 feet is where the last wire coupling postion is located.

 In the other two you can see the tower stub, it looks like I should round the corners off a lttle bit with a side grinder and also round off some of the edges at the guy wire connection.

 Everything attched to the sch 40 pipe is cold rolled steel welded with 6013 rods....good stuff to use with my puny ol' Lincoln buzz box.

One photo you can see the 3-1/2 inch pipe inside the 4 inch pipe, and some all thread being only used to line it up temp. Later I will use 5/8 grade 5 bolts.

 Has anyone seen or known of anyone who coupled the tower up from the inside? Each section has about 1-1/2 feet of 3-1/2 inch sch 40 pipe inserted into the 4 inch pipe, on each coupling side.

 If you guys dont think its a good idea, I have some metal tubing on hand that would make some good outside couplers for it ( it's about the same wall thickness as the sch 40, 4 inch pipe).

The current setup, has about .060 thousandths play between the two wall thicknesses.

 I was planning on using some of those Morris type of outside couplings to hopefully remove some of this play, in conjunction with the 5/8 bolts passing completelty through both pieces of pipe in two seperate locations per coupling side.

 Morris couplings are fairly strong..they just dont offer the thicker wall thicknesses as the outside couplings most often used by  folks here....but with my inner wall lining of sch 40 3-1/2...what do you folks think?

[wpowokal]

I used 3.5" as joiners, it was heavy walled of which I machined a 50mm (2") land that holds the joiner where required, to this land I welded my guy wire lugs. Don't know how to insert pics anymore but go to Tower_pipe-joiner in my files, it's an effective way to join IMHO.

allan

[TomW]

Tower_joiner:

[wpowokal]

Thanks Tom

[Volvo farmer]

Looking good!

Keep us updated! I also welded up my 40 footer with 6013 and a Lincoln cracker box. Sorry I can't help with the engineering details, but if this thing works for you, I might be tempted to copy it!

[freejuice]

Hi Wpowokal,

Thanks for the info. I need to ask you a few more questions about that joiner.

 It looks like it  would drop down inside the two pipe/tower sections and just sit in place...is that correct?

How long is each side that goes into each side of the tower?

Volvo-

 Hopefully I will add a few more pictures to each stage of the build. I have the electrical box which has the rectifier, amp meter and aluminum heat sink made up...I want to get a few pictures of that too. In fact I was inspired by your setup to use a elcetrial box which has a door that could be easily opened up.

My employer has some plastic 55 gallon drums that formerly contained a mild floor cleaning solution....I can have these to possibly use as guy anchors ( filled with concrete and rebar)...but thats a lot of concrete...if I have to use that much, well I guess I have too, but that's a lot of concrete!

I have been thinking of augering out about three holes in a clover leaf pattern with a posthole digger ( about 8-9inches in diameter and about 4 feet deep) ( looking at it from a top view)

 These holes would be interconnecting and filled with at least two, maybe three "T" metal fence Posts that have the spade on them which would be driven another 3 feet past the bottom of the holes. I then could connect these "T" posts to each other with lots of 1/2 rebar to keep it rigid.

My connetion will be a piece of 1 inch diamameter rebar, that I will heat and bend to make  like an 3-4 inch inside loop "Eye Bolt". The dead end of the eye bolt will terminate about 1 foot down the end of the live end...that should give me about 1 foot of welding surface on each side of the rebar joint to weld up with my 6013 "sparker rods" )

 This rebar guy wire anchor will then have a series of 1/2 inch rebar sections about 18 inches long weleded at various locations to keep my huge eye bot anchored well into the concrete.

 Here is a link to that T -Post concept http://www.tractorsupply.com/fencing/t-posts-accessories/t-posts/ ...while these appear a little flimsy for their use alone as anchor point I think with two or three of these posts driven well past the bottom of the hole along with the concreter and rebar mix will hopefully anchor things well.

 Comments/ Suggestions?... Calling me a guyt wire anchoring buffoon is quite acceptable! )

 All the best everyone!

 Gavin

[wpowokal]

Yes it was machined to fit snug inside the 4", each insert is 6"  into the 4" pipe, my tower is 60' with a 10' unit on top.

allan