I thought that BigE would want a bilby that was all wooden. Didn't think about the metal framed ones. Did they build those wood ones?
HO scale survey CREW
That's pretty awesome, Norm. How are you making those 3D models so quickly? Are you entering all the data in by hand? Drawing it in CAD?
I see Sams Club is now selling a "Maker Bot". Looks like fun.
HO scale survey CREW
I use a mechanical package called Inventor to throw the dimensions from a pdf referenced on the older thread on. Then I did a circular copy to get three sides
They built wooden towers in the beginning, but it was slow and hard to reclaim the wood for the next tower so many were left for the locals to salvage.
Jasper Bilby thought they could do better, and worked with a windmill company to come up with the re-usable metal design that was much easier to put up and take down and bears his name. It saved the government millions of dollars over the next few decades.
So there never was such a thing known as a wooden Bilby tower.
If Big E is only going to run steam locomotives, he could get by with a wooden tower even though the use of the Bilby tower predated the advent of diesel locomotives by a number of years. A scale model of a wooden tower would probably be easier to construct and certainly be more durable. It would depend on Big E's level of obsession with "period-correct."
I have seen several tri-stations that would have towers (remnants of it). Maybe that would make a better tower?
An abandoned wooden tower that the local salvagers haven't found yet? That could work.
> If Big E is only going to run steam locomotives, he could get by with a wooden tower even though the use of the Bilby tower predated the advent of diesel locomotives by a number of years. A scale model of a wooden tower would probably be easier to construct and certainly be more durable. It would depend on Big E's level of obsession with "period-correct."
I'm not terribly "periodly correct". I have only one steam loco and its motor is froze solid no matter how much I tried to free it up.
Everything else electric-diesel 60s and newer.
A wood tower would be cool. I used to be good modelling with wood doing scratch-built work. Then again, if I don't put in some sort of rolling landscape or mountain of some sort, wouldn't a Bilby tower be kind of out of place?
HO scale survey crew
> Then again, if I don't put in some sort of rolling landscape or mountain of some sort, wouldn't a Bilby tower be kind of out of place?
The purpose of the towers was to overcome curvature, refraction and vegetation so you could justify a Bilby tower in any kind of terrain.
Here's a photo I took when we retrieved the Bilby tower from Point COUBA south of New Orleans. You'd have to go a ways to find any rolling landscape or mountains.
You don't have to have hills for a triangulation tower, but if you DO have any variation in elevation the station must be on one of the higher places.
HO scale survey CREW
I did go ahead and model the rest of the outer 103 foot tower. The wires are a little big, but, it isn't that bad. I placed it up on Shapeways.com to see how much and the outer tower is and it came in at $40. I can't imagine going up in one of these, I have too high a modulus of gravitational attraction.
In order to keep cost down, I had to stack it a bit
HO scale survey CREW
> I can't imagine going up in one of these, I have too high a modulus of gravitational attraction.
[flash width=560 height=315] http://www.youtube.com/v/6LPSK0PBHzQ?version=3&hl=en_US [/flash]
Joe Lindsay ca. 1975-76
Joe Lindsay, Osgood, Indiana, 10 October 2013. Joe declined to give a repeat performance.
HO scale survey CREW
Impressive, but, I am not going up in anything that does not fit in Autodesk's 3D world. Sports car placed for reference (since it fits)
:good:
I'm late to this thread, but was wondering how many Bilby towers are still standing and where are they? Anybody have locations? I spotted one at Kennedy Space Center in Florida a couple years ago. It's inside the security area, but if you take the tour that takes you inside to see the Apollo/Saturn exhibit you drive right by it in the tour bus. I was able to snap a picture as we drove by with the Vehicle Assembly Building in the background.
