Time for another update. Progress continues to be made but not always in a straight line.
My abysmal welding skills were not being helped by the 20 amp breaker in the workshop in my detached garage tripping every 15 seconds. I needed to run the welder pretty hot because I was working with 1/4" thick metal plate. I talked to a few electricians about getting a 220 volt line installed there and then after I recovered from fainting from the cost, I had a little idea. Hmmm, I thought. I had a 220 volt line ran to a new subpanel in the third bay of the attached garage about 19 years ago for a space heater hanging from the ceiling. It was on a 50 amp breaker. I knew I'd never run the heater and welder at the same time so I decided to install a 220 volt outlet in the single bay of the detached garage where my little workshop used to be and just do any heavier welding in there using that 220 volt outlet. I think it cost me under $100 for the 6 gauge wire, 220 volt receptacle, conduit etc to make it all code legal and poof, I was all set. I resumed my welding training in the old workshop and have not had a breaker trip since then. Of course that immediately moved me on to my next problem of figuring out what pressure to use on the wire feed to stop the bleeping birds nests. Still working on that one. But it did help with the welding, at least I could no longer blame the breaker.
Here's my little ArcCaptain 200 amp friend on a Harbor Freight stand. Nothing fancy but it suits my skill level.
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I was able to complete welding the tilting base plate. I used two 12" x 12" x 1/4" plates of steel and two 800 pound capacity each hinges. The welding wasn't the prettiest but it seems quite strong. I also made good use of the the drill press to make the four holes in each plate. I made a little angle iron ledge for it to sit on when the concrete is setting up. The anchor bolts will already be attached loosely to the base so there should be no alignment issues and will be firmly embedded in the concrete.
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Then it was back to completing building the two 10' long 2" nominal schedule 40 pipes each with an 18 inch sleeved extension to give a bit more height. The two pipes are attached together at the bottom and top by double welded braces and in the middle by the 12" x 12" x 1/4" metal plate that mounts the 2000 pound worm gear winch. The u-bolts are grade 5 so should be plenty strong. I hope! I am doing a bit of experimenting with the pulley setup but I think I've settled on the winch feeding the 1/4" cable down to a pulley at the base that is connected to a 12" long anchor embedded in the concrete footing, then back up to a sheave mounted between the posts nearly 8 feet up the posts, then to a pulley attached to the mast to be raised then the cable finally connects to the top of the post pair. I've seen sailboats with very similar rigging for their gear and figured I'd see how it went. I'm not fully decided yet on how high up to mount the pulley on the mast. I really wanted the posts mounting the winch to be taller than just under 8 feet above ground but this was the best I could achieve with the limitations I had. So far I've just been testing it with the current mast and V58, not yet with the heavier mast, rotor, M104C and V58.
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The base for this pair of posts is about 42 inches deep by 18 inch diameter and took 13 60 pound bags of concrete.
I also fixed up some snug sleeves to go at the joints of the new 2" nominal schedule 40 mast. I used 1.5" nominal schedule 40 black steel for the sleeves so I did not have to weld galvanized. I had about 1/5" of a gap to take up so I welded some rings around the sleeves then ground them down so they were a nice tight interference fit and secured them with grade 5 bolts.
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I have a bit more fussy stuff to do then I will be taking down the current antenna mast so I can dig the support base hole for the new tilting mast base. I think I'll need about 17 60# bags for it so I have 23 on hand just in case. I think for this step I'm going to rent a mixer. I really hate mixing concrete in a wheelbarrow.
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This turned out to be a much bigger project that I thought it'd be but most of that was my choice. A lot of the stuff I could have just ordered from someone on the interweb but what's the fun in that? I'm learning a lot of interesting things along the way including what career I would never want to have (anything to do with concrete).
My goal is the have the beams up by July 1. Or put another 1000 miles on my motorcycle. I know only one of those will happen. 