Calling all professional Mega Tree Builders

[thebaronn]

If I wanted to build a 30' tall mega tree, wheta would I need to do?

I am clay in your hands, mold me! If you tell me to buy a rubber chicken some duct tape and a blow torch......no problem!

[bisquit476]

Sent you a couple of files in an e-mail. Hope they help.

[chuckd]

Use a Rohn 25g radio tower instead of a pole. Make sure you guy wire it well, and also buy a work platform (since you'll spend some time at the top of the tower).

Also, buy a good work harness like tower riggers use.

You also can't suspend the wires directly. Rather, you'll have to use separate support wire and zip-tie or spiral wrap the light strands to the support wire. Only hang from the support wire.

Tie-down at the bottom will need to be rebar stakes or landscape stakes. You won't be able to tie the strands to a simple PVC ring, since it will pull in horribly.

Check out www.andrewschristmas.com, which is where I got my inspiration. I have a little bit of info on my site at www.downsfamilychristmas.com too.

[thebaronn]

I'm lazy, so I use a bucket lift for the small 23 foot mega tree

LOL!!! small. my mega tree is wrongly named then. its only 9ft tall!


hmmm Rohn 25g radio tower is not cheap! my wife is going to kill me!

[thebaronn]

chuckd wrote:

Use a Rohn 25g radio tower instead of a pole. Make sure you guy wire it well, and also buy a work platform (since you'll spend some time at the top of the tower).

Also, buy a good work harness like tower riggers use.

You also can't suspend the wires directly. Rather, you'll have to use separate support wire and zip-tie or spiral wrap the light strands to the support wire. Only hang from the support wire.

Tie-down at the bottom will need to be rebar stakes or landscape stakes. You won't be able to tie the strands to a simple PVC ring, since it will pull in horribly.

Check out http://www.andrewschristmas.com, which is where I got my inspiration. I have a little bit of info on my site at http://www.downsfamilychristmas.com too.

and wow!! I didnt know i would have to go that hardcore. I was thinking a hole in the ground with a pole and some"guy" wires.

why are they called guy wires? is it short for guide?

[Mark h2o]

This is all I could come up with http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guy-wire

Look about 1/4 of the way down for 'wobbling in the wind' http://www.word-detective.com/102805.html

[chuckd]

Heck, who likes to climb? Bucket lift at all times for me!

With a tower (and a bucket lift), you could get up to 50 feet and still 'bucket up' to the top. Beyond 50, and you pretty much need to climb. There are other methods to get up there, but costs keep going up and up.

The problem with taller trees is twofold: windload and weight. You could of course try a flagpole, but they're really not engineered to withstand that kind of weight. My mega tree has nearly 800 pounds of lights on it, and I imagine Randall's is about the same. I don't really think you want to put 800 pounds on an unsupported, free standing pole.

We'd really hate to see your next post subject be 'Mega Tree Disaster'!

Randall has more construction detail on his site than I do, but he and I both use a hinged base for the radio tower. That way, you can fairly easily take the tower down each year.

I'll have a second large mega tree next year, and I have thoughts of going higher. I'm thinking I might use a Rohn 45g tower instead of a 25g, just to make sure it will handle the weight load. It's very hard to find out how much vertical weight load a tower can handle, because wind is the number 1 enemy of radio towers (and that's all you can find on the Rohn site).

Sorry, it's not cheap though.

[jerryleelewisjr]

A guy wire is a support that is the correct name.

–noun



1.
a rope, cable, or appliance used to guide and steady an object being hoisted or lowered, or to secure anything likely to shift its position.

A guide line would be something like a dog runner in your back yard.

Parapet is another one of those terms that gets messed up and called parafet for some reason.

[toddmoon]

I have been debating weather or not to use my real mega trees or build a metal tree this year.

I am on the local fire department so I have access to a boom lift. I am just afraid that me using the fire truck to string lights on my tree would get some strange looks.

Maybe if I wear a santa suite no one would notice! Ha, like that would work.


Attached files

[thebaronn]

toddmoon wrote:

I have been debating weather or not to use my real mega trees or build a metal tree this year.

I am on the local fire department so I have access to a boom lift. I am just afraid that me using the fire truck to string lights on my tree would get some strange looks.

Maybe if I wear a santa suite no one would notice! Ha, like that would work.

Go for the real deal!! That would be sweet!

[bdeditch]

What you need to do instead of having to work off a platform, is have a device that lifts the lights up to the top. I have built a couple that seem to work fine.

[Stickybombs]

toddmoon wrote:

I have been debating weather or not to use my real mega trees or build a metal tree this year.

I am on the local fire department so I have access to a boom lift. I am just afraid that me using the fire truck to string lights on my tree would get some strange looks.

Maybe if I wear a santa suite no one would notice! Ha, like that would work.

I used to have a neighbor that would string his trees using a fire truck all the time. I don't think its that big of a deal. If you have access, go for it!

[toddmoon]

Is anyone any good at math. I need to measure the outside diameter of the tree and the height and then figure out how many channels and lights it would take to do this huge tree.

I may just use an extension pole to string the lights up on the tree. Oh, the possibilities.

I currently have 32 channels to work with but I may just have to get another controller just to take care of the tree. It is huge! I actually have two more trees to work with but I will have to plan for them another year.

[Stickybombs]

Using your picture, I can estimate the size of the tree. You could take a measurement across the diameter to confirm that the numbers are close. The tree appears to be about 61' tall, with 53' of branches to work with. The base is around 37' diameter, which would give you a circumference of 116'. Those could be off a little bit due to perspective, but are a decent ballpark figure. If you get a chance to measure the base diameter, we can adjust.

So, to get 1 wrap of lights near the bottom, you'd be looking at somewhere around 110' of lights. Multiply that by the number of times you'd like to wrap the tree to get your total string length.

If the tree really is anywhere near 60 feet tall, you'd have a hard time stringing that with an extension pole.

[iresq]

Stickybombs wrote:

toddmoon wrote:

I have been debating weather or not to use my real mega trees or build a metal tree this year.

I am on the local fire department so I have access to a boom lift. I am just afraid that me using the fire truck to string lights on my tree would get some strange looks.

Maybe if I wear a santa suite no one would notice! Ha, like that would work.

I used to have a neighbor that would string his trees using a fire truck all the time. I don't think its that big of a deal. If you have access, go for it!

I guess it's all in were you live. Being a Chief in the highly populated suburban area, there is no way I would allow this to be done. We had a local Chief use a tanker to top off his pool. A neighbor video taped and sent to media.

It's all about public trust (as in fuel costs, maintenance costs, truck being out of service). Using public resources for personal gain is a no no.

[toddmoon]

Where I live it most likely would not be a big deal. The only real problem would be that I would set a precedent or a expectation that other may expect me to do the same for them.

Plus the whole liability thing. If something went wrong or anything was damaged I would never hear the end of it from the guys on the department. We had a guy slide on ice into the chiefs vehicle 10 years ago and we still give him a rash about even now.

[chipwdw]

just my 2 cents....as a fellow firefighter that lives in the same town that i work in, i would NOT use the truck to put up lights. i would really love to have a 100' mega tree, but i guarantee that a least one person would have an issue. so i have a 15' mega tree.