back to gin pole and stand

gin pole cup:


When I first made the tower clamp, I was hoping it would be able to grip the pole tightly enough to support
the weight of a tower section with rotor etc, but we found out that it slipped under load, probably due to the
aluminum being compressed, so I had to come up with a different support method that didn't damage the pole.

What I came up with is my "gin pole cup". It's a pretty simple design - just a square of steel with a hole in
the middle, with a short length of steel pipe welded to it. The inner diameter of the pipe closely matches
the outer diameter of the gin pole, so the cup slides right onto the bottom. The hole in the plate allows the
lifting rope (that runs over the pulley and down through the pole) to come out the bottom. It will go down
to another pulley (chained to the base of the tower) to allow the ground crew to pull horizontally to raise
and lower the load.

Care must be taken when making the cup. The weld that attaches the pipe to the plate must only be on the
outside, to allow the flat end of the gin pole to meet flush with the plate on the inside. Also, the hole in
the plate for the rope must be smoothed after cutting the hole, to prevent damage to the lift rope as it
passes through.

I also made two smaller holes in opposite corners of the plate, and mounted stainless steel eyelets (which
a rope and carabiner attach to) to connect to the tower. Then I just clip it to a tower brace and that will
prevent the pole from slipping under load.

The only problem I haven't completely solved is I could use a way to keep the cup on the end of the pole, since
it will simply fall off the end of the pole if the pole is lifted up. For now I just use good ol duct tape to
keep the cup on the bottom of the pole. It never holds any more weight than the weight of the cup, so it
should be fine.



gin pole cup 1:


gin pole cup 2:



highest resolution images
last updated 10/03/2023 at 12:07:52