Tower II

OK. Hopefully this will work. Sorry about the prior post, but I am a computer idiot. I'll also try to answer some questions from the previous post.

The material is simple carbon steel. 1.9" OD Schedule 40 (0.145" wall thickness)weighing 2.7 lbs per foot. The Tower used about 35 feet (less than 2 joints). Very strong pipe and the thickness is easier to weld than the lighter weigth Tubing. If your not carefull, TIG, MIG or conventional Stick welding will burn through thinwall Tubing. FYI 2" OD Tubing has a wall thickness of 0.095" so if your not a professional welder I suggest using the more forgiving pipe which adds less weight than a 6 pack of beer whether or not it's steel or aluminum.

I used MIG welding due to the size of the Tower. TIG is great, but I find it slow and hard to do if not welding on a bench while sitting down. I considered aluminum, but my reason for steel was it's strength is almost identical to aluminum and in this application strength is not really critical since almost any material is strong enough. Weight is also not a issue since we use fat sacs. I'm not sure why the Factory boys brag about light weight Towers when the application calls for well over 1000 lbs ballast. Carbon Steel is much easier to weld than aluminum and again, I'm no professional welder so sticking to what I do well was my best option.

The welds were ground for appearance. FYI in the structural industry, welds are also ground for fatigue resistance.

A lot of research was given to the Pipe OD. Any larger than 2" Tube or 1.9 " Pipe and you have to spend thousands more on the bender. I purchased a JD2 tubing bender and pipe notcher. Spent about $1500 for tools. Crazy, but it's my hobby and I can use them to build the roll bars and bumpers for my old Bronco Projects so to me I'd rather do the work myself, learn something from the experience and have the tools in my shop at the end of the day. The less expensive hydraulic jack style benders were used by other Forum members and the reported results were that they purchased $200 pipe kinkers.

Like I said in the previous post (trying not to offend anyone with aftermarket towers) I don't like the choices of Towers for our old boats. I wanted height so the kids could get some air when wakeboarding but I also wanted a Tower that retained some of the lines of this very small boat. We built the Tower and placed it on the boat several times in order to adjust for appearance. The pictures are of the first installation without board racks etc. It looked great in the shop, but just in case it did not look as good on the water we quickly rattle can painted and gave her a try. We put about 20 hours on her and decided the height of the lower and upper supports fit our needs so now we'll remove and paint professionally.

http://i85.photobucket.com/albums/k75/mob230sl/stbd.jpg

http://i85.photobucket.com/albums/k75/mob230sl/Tubing.jpg

http://i85.photobucket.com/albums/k75/mob230sl/Loaded.jpg

http://i85.photobucket.com/albums/k75/mob230sl/frontview.jpg

http://i85.photobucket.com/albums/k75/mob230sl/sideview.jpg

Tower looks good. The boat looks awesome. Very nice work.

Seeing that boat is a very compelling argument for CC to build a vintage replica boat as we were discussing a few threads ago, isn't it. Boy thats a nice looking boat. I like picture 3 that gives you a sense of how small some of these boats were,(skier, mustang, tique) yet how powerful. Real hot rods. Nice work Mark.