OK, folks. This is one of those "shoulda, coulda" things. Several years back Wolvenar, JacquesM and Jacques friend from the Netherlands Hans came down here and "helped" me build this 60 foot water pumper tower in place. Oh, hell, they built it, I just watched. Well, in those days I could climb. Those days are over.
I want to convert this thing to tilt down and relocate it further up the rise from the edge of the timber.
I need to get some ball park figures for the expected stresses on this if I want to tilt it down. Or perhaps to just lay it down using a backhoe and then move it to its new location?
The thing is made mainly from 2.5" &2" angle iron.
Materials list near as I can figure without climbing it:
240 feet of 3/16" Angle Iron (leg steel)
200 feet of 2" X 1/8" Angle Iron (cross ties) The bottom ones are this size but they get smaller as they go up.
300 feet of 3/8" rod (cross braces)
300# of top steel. Wild guess on the high side.
She has a 10 foot base which sits on top of Railroad Ties planted 5 feet deep and about 3.5 high.
Any of you engineering types tell me what this thing weighs approximately?
I know it all easily fit in my pickup broken down. In fact 5 or 6 would in pieces. This is pretty much all of it in a pile, less the upper iron work for the mast and a catwalk 2 views same pile Base RR ties in background.:
Looked like this before I took it apart to straighten some steel that was bent and paint it. We (2 men) lifted it onto a car trailer one end at a time and clamped it down for the 10 mile trip home:
I do have a nearby oak that is taller than it is to pull from so I can pull from higher up to let it down by tilting without rigging a gin pole.
I would much prefer to pick it up somehow like with a loader or backhoe and set it down if that seems possible?
The turbine is off of it so now is a good time to get this done. Due to changes in how we use the crop land I can set it up another 100 feet up the rise in much cleaner air.
If I get it on the ground I can upgrade it to take one of my bigger turbines.
OK guys fire away but please don't laugh.
Tom