Homemade wakeboard tower

lumpy19 · Criminal Joined: 12 Jan 2003 Posts: 97 City: Rochester

I'm in the process of designing and building my own tower. Has anyone else done this? I've found one real helpful page at www.inboardtalk.com but otherwise I haven't seen anything. I would think it would be a little more common since you can build a comparable tower for well under $2k even if you buy all your own tools.

So anyone done this? have any pictures, drawings, advice?

Thanks

bluefish86 · Posted: Feb 11, 2003 2:07 pm Post subject:

Search this forum, there has already been a post about it that you might find helpful.

lumpy19 · Criminal Joined: 12 Jan 2003 Posts: 97 City: Rochester

Yup I've read that post, thats where I found the inboardtalk.com link, just trying to squeeze out some more info.

Da MOOSE · Posted: Feb 13, 2003 5:32 pm Post subject:

I made one of the first towers ,I used speed rail ,check out WWW.NOBULLJUSTMOOSE.COM gallry or fiberglass repair .
It cost about $150 Razz

K-dub · Ladies Man Joined: 12 Jan 2003 Posts: 14760

Moose, i did'nt see a tower on there??

Buergday · Guest

check out the link I posted in the Fly High Monkey Bar thread for tower mounts

Nor*Cal · Ladies Man Joined: 12 Jan 2003 Posts: 9479 City: Sac

http://www.coldlake.com/go/hydrofoil/flight.htm

http://www.inboardtalk.com/tower/tower.html

Two good links. You might also try to do a search on this site and see what you find.

Jay Dutton · Posted: Feb 13, 2003 5:46 pm Post subject:

First of all can you weld? I wouldn't attempt to make one If I didn't know how. Mine (see profile) was made by a really good welder who'd never seen nor heard of one before. Took him about a week or so to finish. I think he drew up some sketches, for the most part he kind of built it has he went along. He was knowledable about pressure points, flex, and other stuff I didn't know what he was talking about. I really don't know how much actual engineering is needed to make a basic tower. I've gotten a whole season out of it w/no problems, doesn't creak or shake. It ain't no boss swoop or FCT, but it gets the job done. I paid around $900 for install, light bar and lights. Not sure how much it cost in materiels. I know it was pretty labor intensive, he spent at least one day polishing the stainless steel.

Jay Dutton · Posted: Feb 13, 2003 5:49 pm Post subject:

Moose that tower is pretty funky, how does it work? What the hell is up w/those 4wheelers w/the spikes on it?

jedsterr · Soul Rider Joined: 13 Jan 2003 Posts: 291 City: Star Idaho

I built mine. Feel free to email direct with any questions.

Several pics at: http://community.webshots.com/album/40519003fIOPNb

lumpy19 · Criminal Joined: 12 Jan 2003 Posts: 97 City: Rochester

Jay Dutton,

No I can't weld. I will be bending, cutting, and setting up the tower and then taking it to a friend to weld.

I plan on drawing it up at work in CAD, running some FEA software to make sure its strong enough, and then putting it together. I realize its not a small project but I have all the tools and access to cheap material so I figure what the heck.

Thanks everyone for the links, info, and pics, it really helps.

pete · Newbie Joined: 22 Jan 2003 Posts: 12 City: baltimore

my old boat with homeyjob tower

wakegrinder · Newbie Joined: 02 Feb 2003 Posts: 13 City: London, ON

I am curentally designing my own tower for my boat, I am trying to model mine after the titan tower I found it to be nice simple design. They use a 2.25 dia stainless tube, but I am going to use 2.25 dia exaust pipe because I am going to paint the tower the same colour as the strip on my boat, also I figure the the exhaust shop can bent the tube to my spec. Just rember the K.I.S.S philosphy while designing.

lumpy19 · Criminal Joined: 12 Jan 2003 Posts: 97 City: Rochester

Wakegrinder,

You're not really going to use exhaust pipe are you? I think that will crinkle under the first hard pull. If you're serious I'd highly recommend not using that stuff, its not meant to be put under that kind of stress.

jedsterr · Soul Rider Joined: 13 Jan 2003 Posts: 291 City: Star Idaho

lump, It's all in the geometry. I think that exhaust pipe could work fine if it's built right. I used 1/4" wall aluminum pipe, because I didn't want to have to worry about failure. With exhaust pipe you would just have to be sure to use plenty of cross bracing because the pipe is relatively soft & will flex some. I have personally seen exhaust pipe towers in action & they hadn't collapsed at the end of the first season of use.

My $0.02 -Jed

lumpy19 · Criminal Joined: 12 Jan 2003 Posts: 97 City: Rochester

Jedsterr,

You're probably right but the thought of exhaust pipe as a tower just scares me, most of the stuff is paper thin.

wakegrinder · Newbie Joined: 02 Feb 2003 Posts: 13 City: London, ON

Hey lump what gets me is if you check out the titan tower they are using .125 thickness tube, exhaust pipe is the same thickness. If you check out those titan towers they don't need extra bracing because they transfer the stress all around keeping it simple. Besides if you get a thick wall tubing you can't get a desent bend, with a large O.D. But if you go with a small O.D you still can bend with a thicker wall thickness.

Da MOOSE · Posted: Feb 15, 2003 12:43 pm Post subject:

Soory bro, it's under ( fiberglass& car rapairs)WWW.NOBULLJUSTMOOSE.COM

Fishmaster · Posted: Feb 15, 2003 3:01 pm Post subject:

Check out the site by Steve Wolverton at http://www.stevewolverton.com/flyer1.html where he documents making a Bimini for a Mini Tower as well as his own speaker tubes. The speaker pics on his new site were not coming up but they are on his old site http://www.overland.net/~moose/flyer3.html.

Matt at www.inboardtalk.com has probably done more design and analysis of wakeboard towers than anyone else I've found that makes their information public. He has done a lot of computer stress modeling on my design at http://www.inboardtalk.com/tower/concept/monster.html A very important thing learned from all the computer stress modeling was that with typical towers (we chose 2-1/2” diameter tube like JoyStick ) the stresses on the materials, even with 1200 lbs of load never get to even 10% of the strength of the aluminum. It can’t be stressed enough that if you build your own tower (or install anyone else’s) the first place it would ever fail is the front legs ripping fiberglass apart. Take the time to use good backing plates and reinforce if needed. Wakeboarders typically cannot create nearly enough pull force to cause problems, and most normal ski ropes would break at about 1000 lbs of pull. The problem is with the newer galactic tube “vessels” that hold 4 or more people and come with a 4000 lb break strength rope. If this size tube was every to get caught on anything or dive into a wave a tower could fail, or more likely the front legs would pull out of the boat.

There is a company called eTec at http://www.etecmarine.com/ that sells the hardware used by many of the current tower (wakeboard and fishing) makers that would be a good place to buy the attachments for the boat deck if you build your own.

If you are the do-it-yourself type and have good access to design and manufacturing resources it can be a great project. We started to design a tower for my SeaRay about a year ago and it literally took on a huge life of it's own. An engineer I board with wanted one for his boat, then another engineer, then a guy with strong manufacturing contacts wanted one, then a friend that sells boats wanted one . . . -Long story short is we've been hard at it for a year with over 20 people now in our development group, and we are all getting big, strong, silent, stiff, good looking polished & anodized 2-1/2” diameter towers at about the same price as a mini tower or monkey bar. It turned out so well we are in the late stages of making it into a formal company to take the product to market (Monster Tower).

Bill Twisted Evil

slaydit · Posted: Feb 15, 2003 10:23 pm Post subject:

funnyest thing i saw was last year.

as im walking down the shorline checkin out everyones boats....i see a bassboat, with a tower that looked pretty much just like this

___
| |

it was 3 pieces of metal piping. and was as square as a .... as square as a umm....well it was really square. and at the top had a ball hitch. funny funny

-jey

Skwake · Posted: Feb 16, 2003 8:33 pm Post subject:

here you go simple and easy scaffolding bolted on the tindish lol this is full on old skool Cool

Fishmaster · Posted: Feb 20, 2003 10:40 am Post subject:

That is by no doubt the most economical "tower" ever built.

Other Ideas:
Fill the boat about 1/2 way up with water and you got matching fat sacks!
Duck tape a boom box to the "tower" for tunes!