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Home made Pier


Alec

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Decided  that I've had enough of setting up the tripod, so making a fixed pier and will enclose with a roll back double door shed. I was very lucky that while working at a customers today, a company I use to install all the fixed high pressure coolant feeds to machine tools were on site, working along side my install.  The first stage of my pier was made in 5 mins. The flanges are deformed and shrunk under pressure onto the main tube which is 6 inch diameter and will be filled with concrete. Not much left to do. Make a flange for the top to attach the EQ6 I'm getting which should be made tomorrow, dig a big hole and fill with concreate and get the whole thing powder coated. 

Pier .jpg

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That looks beautiful. ?

 

It looks like polished stainless steel, if so don't you think it would be a shame to powder coat it.

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15 minutes ago, Tweedledee said:

That looks beautiful. ?

 

It looks like polished stainless steel, if so don't you think it would be a shame to powder coat it.

Agree, could save a bit of cash!!

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I agree with Pete, the stainless looks mint. I would paint the bit that will be concreted in with bitumen as the concrete can affect certain grades of stainless, just the bit that won't be seen really. 

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Yes, it looks great as it is. Nice job.

And filling with concrete would be a bit messy.

 

Why not just fill it it a fine sand ?

 

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From what I've read, some prefer to fill with concrete, some prefer kiln dried sand. With sand the thinking is that everything vibrates, but the millions of tiny particles in the sand move microscopically with each vibration and dampen down the vibrations many times quicker than without. The pier might vibrate for several milliseconds with sand, rather than several seconds without. I've never seen any actual comparisons or tests on this, but when I had a permanent steel pier in an obsy, I used kiln dried sand and I could hit the pier with a hammer and struggle to see any movement at the eyepiece. The kiln dried sand is about £5 per 25kg sack at most builders merchants. One bag would probably do for your pier. I'm sure either method is better than leaving it hollow - to ring like a bell. ?

 

Maybe someone has more info on this.

 

If using concrete you could simply mask off the outside of the pier to save having to clean off any mess or drips afterwards.

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On ‎05‎/‎06‎/‎2018 at 16:30, Alec said:

Decided  that I've had enough of setting up the tripod, so making a fixed pier and will enclose with a roll back double door shed. I was very lucky that while working at a customers today, a company I use to install all the fixed high pressure coolant feeds to machine tools were on site, working along side my install.  The first stage of my pier was made in 5 mins. The flanges are deformed and shrunk under pressure onto the main tube which is 6 inch diameter and will be filled with concrete. Not much left to do. Make a flange for the top to attach the EQ6 I'm getting which should be made tomorrow, dig a big hole and fill with concreate and get the whole thing powder coated. 

Pier .jpg

UPDATE 06/06/2018 just added the pier top again out of stainless, just waiting on bolts and making the adaptor

IMG_3100.JPG

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