This posting only impacts anyone using Tashjian Tower drawing RBC-54 LT Base
Weldment drawing to construct their own rebar base.
In early 2010 I purchased from Tashjian Tower the four pieces of steel needed
to fabricate the Reinforced Concrete Base for my LM-354 tower and requested the
weldment drawing. This week I finally got around to seriously reviewing the
drawing in order to review the task with my certified welder. What I discovered
is an error involving the position of the ears on the third leg of the
assembly.
Looking at the weldment drawing the third leg ear (bevel to the right) is on
the wrong side of the 1" rebar. The drawing shows it right of the rebar but it
should be left of the rebar. If the RBC-54 is fabricated per the drawing the
third tower leg (non hinged leg) will bolt up on the wrong side of the ear and
the bevel will not function as intended. Some may consider this to be no big
deal but the bevel was engineered to aid in guiding the tower third leg into
position as the tower is raised from a horizontal position.
Today I contacted Jason at Tashjian Towers and he confirmed there is no update
to the drawing dated 10/03/01 but did go check inventory and verified that the
RBC-54 units on hand all have the ears on the left side of the 1" rebar.
If you want to see how it should be fabricated go look at the photos by K6DQ on
his website http://drumon.com/ham_tower4.html Look at the 5th photo down on
page 4. BTW, his photo sequence of his tower installation is excellent.
I hope this helps anyone fabricating their own base using the above mentioned
drawing. I highly recommend anyone putting up a a LM-354 or similar product
purchase the factory made base but in my case the shipping from CA to VA was as
expensive as the base itself. Considering the time I have spent buying the
ears, buying the specified type of weldable 1" rebar, hauling the tilt fixture
to the weld shop to use as a jig, etc I might have been better off biting the
bullet and opening my wallet ;-)
73,
Ron W8RJL
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