In a message dated 6/20/2008 6:42:08 A.M. Pacific Daylight Time,
towertalk-request@contesting.com writes:
> The bottom two sections of one of my 25G towers has elongated the bolt
holes
to the extent that timberrrrrr is at risk.
I assume timberrrrr means falling like a tree. A guyed tower doesn't
fall like that. While your damage is obvious I doubt that it's fatal.
> I'm tempted to have a local shop cut a steel tube whose ID matches the OD
of the legs lengthwise so I can strap it and bolt it to the existing loose
joints on the outside to keep the ol' buger up.
The leg joint bolts hold the sections together and also help take the
vertical load compression of the tower. Adding a splint section or two to the
legs might help but aren't too helpful for the compression. Since they're
already elongated, you could put in bigger bolts to fill the holes. You could
also drill a new hole between the two existing holes with a new bolt and
that'd
help.
How did they get elongated? Elongation is usually a function of tower
rocking back and forth. (How did that happen with a guyed tower?)
I'm not too worried about the elongation if that's the only damage. It
just means that the leg compression (which in the case of this 50' tower is
pretty small) is pushing down closer to the swaged part of the leg if the
tower
has actually settled a little bit. If the leg is still intact (no splitting
or other damage), doing the above will put it back into the reliable
category.
Cheers & GL,
Steve K7LXC
TOWER TECH -
Professional tower services for hams
Cell: 206-890-4188
**************Gas prices getting you down? Search AOL Autos for
fuel-efficient used cars.
(http://autos.aol.com/used?ncid=aolaut00050000000007)
_______________________________________________
_______________________________________________
TowerTalk mailing list
TowerTalk@contesting.com
http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/towertalk
|