Wednesday, June 20, 2007

tower in the yard

I've finally figured out that I have just enough room in my yard to erect the tower. So last night after dinner I began assembling the pieces - and much to my surprised delight - I was able to put the entire thing together in about an hour. I guess I learned a thing or two from last year's project! I have a bit more work to do on guy wires and the gin pole before we'll be able to raise the tower - I'm shooting for Saturday.

3 comments:

Beer Hoarding Magpie said...

I have been thinking about the sections of shadecloth affixed to the tower sections...

If you'll recall the 80% attached to the dome last year allowed for the entire dome to be lifted up and a couple of struts of 3/4 inch steel conduit to bend appreciably. I would definitely try to factor in 60-80 mile per hour gusts vectored in god knows what ways on 20% shadecloth given the recent datapoints we got on Saturday. My vote would be to do without: a catastrophic failure in the first year would not be an ideal scenario. I would propose we 'site test' this year with any extra bamboo, and with a couple lengths of the less sturdy pieces that would have to bear that stress. I would also propose one do that test with 40% shadecloth---if it survives that, it will certainly withstand at 20%. If that thing crashed in the plaza it could make for an exciting story but I doubt you'll get any enthusiasm for a return trip

Beer Hoarding Magpie said...

That said there are some things we could do to fill in the sections proposed for shade cloth with some visually exciting materials that have little wind resistance-- there is a mylar reflective bird ribbon used to deter birds from gardens. It could be strung in such a fashion to create a semi solid luminescent effect, very glittery in the day and at night, but would not offer any opportunity for wind stress, basically it is a strip of reinforced mylar ribbon that is spiraled about so that it has many reflective planes. It is available in the garden section of the vashon store, and is not very expensive

Glenn said...

I'm intrigued with the idea of a glittery reflective material and also with not having the tower crash down during a big storm - let's check it out.