Happy New Year all,
Firstly thanks for a great forum - Never joined till now, but used the words in these pages to help choose my RTECH and Oxford welders - a lot of good advice on here.
So I wondered if I could ask people's thoughts on this:
I have a boat I built many years ago and I am just modifying the mast after many years. The mast has worked very well, but I want to weld in steps now and remove the old British Telecom telegraph pole steps I have used all these years. The Mast is 6082-T6, but welding in steps will weaken it in that area. Now I am not worried about weakening the compression carrying aspect of the tube as the mast can carry far more load in that area than it needs to. What worries me is the buckling issue. So I have designed and welded up some steps as below:
I believe that this will be okay because whilst it may lose 30-50% of its strength in the Heat Affected Zone (HAZ) and that HAZ is possibly 20-30 mm from the weld centre line so weakening quite a large area of tube, I am carrying the 3/4 tube through the tube as a cross brace across the tube, thereby making that area very resistant to buckling or kinking. I do worry about the diagonal support though as that has no corresponding brace, however the step (ladder rung over 3/4 tube) would give some support and resistance to that area too.
What do you all think?
Here is the mast as it was and yes it worked well as the compression forces spread nicely and the main sail on a furling system is unobstructed by any mast pole.:
Firstly thanks for a great forum - Never joined till now, but used the words in these pages to help choose my RTECH and Oxford welders - a lot of good advice on here.
So I wondered if I could ask people's thoughts on this:
I have a boat I built many years ago and I am just modifying the mast after many years. The mast has worked very well, but I want to weld in steps now and remove the old British Telecom telegraph pole steps I have used all these years. The Mast is 6082-T6, but welding in steps will weaken it in that area. Now I am not worried about weakening the compression carrying aspect of the tube as the mast can carry far more load in that area than it needs to. What worries me is the buckling issue. So I have designed and welded up some steps as below:
I believe that this will be okay because whilst it may lose 30-50% of its strength in the Heat Affected Zone (HAZ) and that HAZ is possibly 20-30 mm from the weld centre line so weakening quite a large area of tube, I am carrying the 3/4 tube through the tube as a cross brace across the tube, thereby making that area very resistant to buckling or kinking. I do worry about the diagonal support though as that has no corresponding brace, however the step (ladder rung over 3/4 tube) would give some support and resistance to that area too.
What do you all think?
Here is the mast as it was and yes it worked well as the compression forces spread nicely and the main sail on a furling system is unobstructed by any mast pole.: