[TowerTalk] A quest about Gin Poles

[Patrick Greenlee]

A good friend who has MS in mech engineering and 35+ years of hands on 
experience made the following suggestion to me:

Do not splice the pole in the center where the greatest bending moment is. 
Add the extra material near the ends.  In your case that would require you 
to cut one of your poles in half and add the pieces on either end of the 
uncut pole.  If able, you may want to consider making the connecting piece 
fit over your poles rather than inside. That would be significantly 
stronger.

Just food for thought. YMMV

Patrick AF5CK

-----Original Message----- 
From: K8RI
Sent: Thursday, May 30, 2013 4:13 PM
To: towertalk at contesting.com
Subject: Re: [TowerTalk] A quest about Gin Poles

On 5/30/2013 4:50 PM, Kevin Elliott wrote:
> I have purchased all of the item to build my gin pole but I have one 
> question I am hoping someone can answer.  I have two seven foot pieces of 
> 2" x .250"
aluminum that I am going to use for the gin pole itself.  I also have a
6' length of 1.750" aluminum that I am going to use for the connector
for the two 7' pieces.
  Now my question is this; how long should the 1.750" piece of aluminum
be for the slice of the 2" pieces?  I think having 3' in each of the 2"
pieces is
overkill and will add weight to the device. I was thinking more along
the line of 4' section which allows 2' in each of the sections. Or
should I go with 3' on each piece?
>
>

Having worked with these things for years, I wouldn't use a 2 piece gin
pole except for very light work.  2nd I would consider the smaller
inside splice to be too short.  The first question is what alloy and
temper is the tubing and splice?

I use 12' and 24' sections of 6061T6 with 1/8th, 3/16 and 1/4 inch wall
depending on the load.

I would ask an engineer about the configuration you are planning.

Climbing and using gin poles in tower work is quite dangerous!
Every year we lose a number of well trained and experienced climbers.
When something breaks up there your only thought is to get out of the
way with out getting off the tower.

Working on a 40 or 50 foot tower can be just as dangerous as working on
the big ones. You are just working with smaller stuff which can be just
as deadly as can a fall from that height.

Be careful

73

Roger (K8RI)


> Thanks
> Kevin Elliott
> KGXMN
> kgXmn at kgXmn.com
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