OP
phantom309
Silver Member
- Joined
- Apr 29, 2002
- Messages
- 194
Howdy Todd-
RE your question about welding another piece of steel to the 3/8" plates that could then catch the top of the pole. That would certainly work! You could even cap the pole with that to keep the rain from sneaking down the inside of the pole to the bottom of the hole. But I don't think that it is necessary. In the end, the plate will be supported by a weld - either to the "cap" you mentioned, or to the pole itself. That great structures book I mentioned above says that a 3/16" weld will support 2,400lbs per inch of weld. So if you run a three inch weld at the top of the plate (to the pole) and a three inch weld at the bottom of the plate, that's six inches of weld == 14,400 lbs of allowable load which is plenty for our needs. One advantage of using a separate piece of steel as you mentioned is that you could weld it while you are on the ground and could turn the pieces this way and that to make the weld nice and easy to lay down versus having to lay the weld while the plate is clamped to a pole 13 feet in the air.
RE the 2x3 clips: It would definitely be possible to just bolt the 2x4 girts directly to the poles. But I want to orient the poles horizontally (1.5" high and 3.5" wide). In other words, the 2x4 should be perpendiular to the pole along both its length and its "height". That'd make bolting them to the pole more difficult. The clips fix that by providing something to secure the 2x4 to that is perpendicular to the pole. I stole that idea from Miracle Truss. Check out the picture at the top of this web page. If you click the higher of the red dots that are inside the garage door, or the one that is a roof purlin, you'll see that by orienting the 2x4's that way and spacing the girts/purlins 24" OC, you can use regular old (inexpensive!) insulation, running horizontally around your building. That's what I want to do.
I bet that Miracle Truss just takes a piece of 3" plate and welds it at a 90° angle to the truss. I had some extra 2x3 angle so I'm going to use that. Since it is bent 90° already, it'll be easy to clamp it in place (2" side to pole, 3" side to support 2x4), weld it and then set the 2x4 on top of it and run a couple deck screws up through the clip, into the 2x4.
RE making the plates. I cut the plates and the little support plates that are welded to the bottom of those with an oxy/ace cutting torch. Ditto all of the clips and their holes. I did get lazy and took the plates to a machine shop to have the 1/2" holes punched with an Iron Worker machine. IMO, a cutting torch is SUPER for cutting 1/8 - 1/2" plate, but punching holes is a bit of a pain as the plate gets to 3/8" or more (especially for my Sam's Special torch which isn't very big). The machine shop charged me $0.50 per hole, or about $60 for the whole lot of 'em. Compared to the day or so it would have taken me to do it, I was happy to hire it out. But, FWIW, if you don't have one, a oxy/ace cutting torch does very well for most cutting needs and is pretty easy to learn. Speaking of that, check out the attached picture. This is my wife helping me cut the 2" x 1/4" tabs that are used to make the cage at the bottom of the poles. I needed something like 192 of the small steel plates cut so she helped me out by cutting about a third of them! Wow, looking at that picture reminds me that that was on Christmas day! What a gal. FWIW, she'd never used a torch before. I showed her how, and she knocked out about 70 of those small plates in an hour or so! (I guess I better hang onto her!)
Lastly. Avoid the temptation to attach plates and clips to the poles ahead of time. If you do that, you will have to make sure and set all of the poles in the ground at the exact same elevation! If the hole for one pole is lower than the one next door and you don't somehow fix that, the clips and plates will be out of level. It's hard enough to get the poles in the ground oriented plumb and square. You don't want to also have to figure out how to shim them all up to the exact same height.
So wait to weld anything (above ground level) to the poles until after they are all in. Then you can use a laser level or transit to establish a level on all of the poles, then measure up/down from that mark to establish where to put all of the clips and the plates up top. Put the poles in the ground a little long so you'll have some room for error and plan to cut them all off a little to the level you have established.
Mark
ps: I'm still waiting for concrete. Darned wet/cold weather has my concrete crew backed up...
added in edit: I checked my receipt and I paid $5.30/ft for my 3.5 x 3.5 x 3/16" in December. The price of building materials continues to climb! /forums/images/graemlins/frown.gif
RE your question about welding another piece of steel to the 3/8" plates that could then catch the top of the pole. That would certainly work! You could even cap the pole with that to keep the rain from sneaking down the inside of the pole to the bottom of the hole. But I don't think that it is necessary. In the end, the plate will be supported by a weld - either to the "cap" you mentioned, or to the pole itself. That great structures book I mentioned above says that a 3/16" weld will support 2,400lbs per inch of weld. So if you run a three inch weld at the top of the plate (to the pole) and a three inch weld at the bottom of the plate, that's six inches of weld == 14,400 lbs of allowable load which is plenty for our needs. One advantage of using a separate piece of steel as you mentioned is that you could weld it while you are on the ground and could turn the pieces this way and that to make the weld nice and easy to lay down versus having to lay the weld while the plate is clamped to a pole 13 feet in the air.
RE the 2x3 clips: It would definitely be possible to just bolt the 2x4 girts directly to the poles. But I want to orient the poles horizontally (1.5" high and 3.5" wide). In other words, the 2x4 should be perpendiular to the pole along both its length and its "height". That'd make bolting them to the pole more difficult. The clips fix that by providing something to secure the 2x4 to that is perpendicular to the pole. I stole that idea from Miracle Truss. Check out the picture at the top of this web page. If you click the higher of the red dots that are inside the garage door, or the one that is a roof purlin, you'll see that by orienting the 2x4's that way and spacing the girts/purlins 24" OC, you can use regular old (inexpensive!) insulation, running horizontally around your building. That's what I want to do.
I bet that Miracle Truss just takes a piece of 3" plate and welds it at a 90° angle to the truss. I had some extra 2x3 angle so I'm going to use that. Since it is bent 90° already, it'll be easy to clamp it in place (2" side to pole, 3" side to support 2x4), weld it and then set the 2x4 on top of it and run a couple deck screws up through the clip, into the 2x4.
RE making the plates. I cut the plates and the little support plates that are welded to the bottom of those with an oxy/ace cutting torch. Ditto all of the clips and their holes. I did get lazy and took the plates to a machine shop to have the 1/2" holes punched with an Iron Worker machine. IMO, a cutting torch is SUPER for cutting 1/8 - 1/2" plate, but punching holes is a bit of a pain as the plate gets to 3/8" or more (especially for my Sam's Special torch which isn't very big). The machine shop charged me $0.50 per hole, or about $60 for the whole lot of 'em. Compared to the day or so it would have taken me to do it, I was happy to hire it out. But, FWIW, if you don't have one, a oxy/ace cutting torch does very well for most cutting needs and is pretty easy to learn. Speaking of that, check out the attached picture. This is my wife helping me cut the 2" x 1/4" tabs that are used to make the cage at the bottom of the poles. I needed something like 192 of the small steel plates cut so she helped me out by cutting about a third of them! Wow, looking at that picture reminds me that that was on Christmas day! What a gal. FWIW, she'd never used a torch before. I showed her how, and she knocked out about 70 of those small plates in an hour or so! (I guess I better hang onto her!)
Lastly. Avoid the temptation to attach plates and clips to the poles ahead of time. If you do that, you will have to make sure and set all of the poles in the ground at the exact same elevation! If the hole for one pole is lower than the one next door and you don't somehow fix that, the clips and plates will be out of level. It's hard enough to get the poles in the ground oriented plumb and square. You don't want to also have to figure out how to shim them all up to the exact same height.
So wait to weld anything (above ground level) to the poles until after they are all in. Then you can use a laser level or transit to establish a level on all of the poles, then measure up/down from that mark to establish where to put all of the clips and the plates up top. Put the poles in the ground a little long so you'll have some room for error and plan to cut them all off a little to the level you have established.
Mark
ps: I'm still waiting for concrete. Darned wet/cold weather has my concrete crew backed up...
added in edit: I checked my receipt and I paid $5.30/ft for my 3.5 x 3.5 x 3/16" in December. The price of building materials continues to climb! /forums/images/graemlins/frown.gif
