Hello Tower Talk Fellows, .... I will tell you a Hot-Dip Galvanizing story
that happened to me in the mid 1970s that you might not want to attempt.
Glad I only tried one tower section.
I wanted to re-galvanize a Rohn HDX-56 tower that had become pretty rusty in
spots. Found a company in Charlotte, NC that had a BIG vat about 30' long
and 6-8' wide of HOT Molten galvanize. They used a small crane to lower and
raise the object to be coated. I took one 8" section of the tower to them
for practice. It was lowered into the hot molten vat which I was told was
about 800 Degrease F. When they pulled it out only one leg of the tower came
out. The other two legs and all the cross braces were missing. We then
realized that the Rohn HBX, HDX series of towers are put together with
aluminum rivets. Aluminum has a melting point several hundred degrees lower
than galvanize so all the rivets simply melted and the tower fell apart.
After several weeks the Company was able to retrieve the two legs and cross
braces. I sold the section of tower as a "Tower Kit" and it is in use today
and is still very very shinny.
Message is: DO NOT attempt to Hot-Dip Galvanize a Rohn HBX, HDX series of
tower.
73s, Gary, K4MQG
_______________________________________________
_______________________________________________
TowerTalk mailing list
TowerTalk@contesting.com
http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/towertalk
|