[TowerTalk] Tower takedown

[Floyd Rodgers]

In most areas, only 3-4 feet are allowed to hang over the rear/front bumper or the locals start revenue distributon (tickets). Unless you have a rack on the truck that extends beyond the cab, you'll not be able to hang it out the back 11+ feet. What you would be better off doing is taking a look for the falling derrick procedure which has been metioned here in the archives to lower the tower. I would generally recommend only using the truck as an anchor point and doing the lowering work with a come-a-long from as high up the tower as practical assuming it has a tilt base. I would caution against using a manlift as a crane because it was not designed for that purpose. You might be able to swing it with a skilled operator and a number of contruction machines like a backhoe/track hoe or rough terrain forklift. Not knowing your skillset in contruction engineering, if it feels questionable at all, simply let a professional handle the takedown, the risks are
 just not worth it. Having taken down a FREE tower myself, which ended up costing nearly the full new cost, I will carefully consider the freebies before leaving the driveway. Any perceived posibility of an accident make it an instant "pass" for me.



-----Original Message-----
From: towertalk-bounces at contesting.com
[mailto:towertalk-bounces at contesting.com]On Behalf Of Gary Slagel
Sent: Tuesday, July 15, 2008 9:07 PM
To: TowerTalk
Subject: [TowerTalk] Tower take down scheme - physics problem

Thought I'd run this through the group and see what you thought... too much
math/physics for me to figure out.

I need to take down a Triex WT-51.  I'm traveling several hundred miles to
do it and won't have much help available.  I'm thinking crank the tower down
to its 21' nested position, back my pickup up to it, pull the hinged tower
over onto the pickup tailgate and slowly pull the pickup forward letting the
tower lean over, slowly kind of sliding down over the tailgate.

Of course, its not as simple as that, as I'll need to rig something up to
make it all slide smoothly and probably provide some extra support to the
tower as it slides.  I can figure all that out but am wondering what kind of
equivalent weight this will put on the tail end of the pickup.  The tower
weighs in the range of 400lbs.... I think the pickup would handle up to 1500
lbs or so on the back end.  I'm thinking the lever action of the tower is
going to apply much more the 400lbs to the pickup but no idea how much.

Any thoughts on how feasible this is?  As I said, I know I've got to do some
engineering to make process work but I'm just wondering if the pickup can
handle it?

Thanks for input,
Gary

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