[TowerTalk] AB-105 assembly

[Steve Bookout]

Hello all,

Time for a new thread (no birds, db's or 'K' factor in this message.)

I would like to hear suggestions of the best way to assemble AB-105 tower
so that it's not too crooked when it's up.

For those of you who aren't familiar with this stuff, it's a military tower
which is built like an erector set.  Each leg, horizontal and diagonal
member is a separate part which all bolts together.

If you pre-assemble it on the laying on the ground, as a complete tower,
unless the ground is perfectly level, the tower will by crooked when it is
raised by crane.

Most people I know assemble it one piece at a time, as they go up with the
tower.  This doesn't guarantee anything either.  

I have heard of one fellow who goes up with it, with the nuts and bolts
finger tight, and aligns it after it's assembled.  It may be that this is
done from one guy point to the next, not the whole tower.  I understand
this is quite a ride.
I suppose there a about 80 bolts per section, so once assembled, even
loosely, it's not going to move too much.

A person *could* build a fixture on the ground which would consist of two
wooden posts, about 3 feet apart, with pairs about 10 feet apart.  Each
pair would have a horizontal member connecting each post of the pair.
Would look like goal posts.  If placed every 10 feet or so, provided the
horizontal member were all leveled with respect to each other, you could
pre-assemble a tower and hopefully, get it straight.  Again, of course,
this would only work if you would be using a crane to set the whole tower
up as one piece.

The subject came up over the weekend and I thought I would see what
suggestions were out there.

73 de Steve, NR4M


---------------------------------------------
Steve Bookout, NR4M (ex NJ4F)
Rapidan Data Systems

'DX4WIN...The way logging programs should be!'
Free demo at http://www.dx4win.com

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