Just wanted to share my tilt tower base that I completed yesterday. My tower will be 50ft tall and 3.5 inch x .150 wall steel pipe. I should be pouring concrete this weekend.
Will do. I marked off the area to dig/pour today and started sinking the 3ft long anchors. Once I have a better idea of this weekends rain forecast I will buy the 16) 80lb bags on concrete and rebar.
14" deep and 38" x 38". About 1600 lbs of concrete plus 8 Guy wires. 4 at 20 ft and 4 at 40 ft. Pole is 3.5" dia. Guy wire base is 32' from the pole.
Being you are building real heavy. I will still remind you use 3 or 4 clamps on the guy wires. Talk to orlando sanchez on utube. He has had doubles slip off. Good Luck and hope to see pictures of it flying soon.
The Guy wires I have are 1/4" galvanized aircraft grade 7000lb rated and I absolutely plan to use at least 3 clamps if not more. Clamps are cheap! You also have to put the clamps on correctly. I may have ends crimped on the ends which will be attached to the tower since you cannot check them easily.
When you put the clamps on your guys ... ... just remember "Never saddle a dead horse". (In other words make sure the clamp's saddle is on the live portion of the cable). With 3 clamps per cable end, installed correctly, there should never be a problem ... ... providing the anchor can't move. Nice tilt-up base ... I just used 3" x 3" angle (3 feet into conc. with rebar laced through hole in each at the bottom end). Then again, my tilt-up is only 21' tall. timber out
"There is an old adage which has over time became the rule; when installing clamps to secure the loop at the end of your wire rope make sure you do not "saddle a dead horse." The saddle portion of the clamp assembly is placed and tightened on the opposite side of the terminal end of the cable (the load-bearing or live end). According to the US Navy Manual S9086-UU-STM-010, Chapter 613R3, Wire and Fiber Rope and Rigging, "This is to protect the live or stress-bearing end of the rope against crushing and abuse. The flat bearing seat and extended prongs of the body (saddle) are designed to protect the rope and are always placed against the live end."[3] The US Navy and most regulatory bodies do not recommend the use of such clips as permanent terminations."
Hi Josh, that looks a great job, .... on my own tower I used a self supporting tower and made a hinge at the base onto a large block of concrete that weighs about half a tonne and fastened the tower in two places up the gable of the shed, check out my video on youtube
