has anyone designed a tower using autocad. if so did you base it off of existing tower or did you design it from scratch. I have to draw a tower for my autocad class and i'm trying to get an idea of what others have already done.

Yup. Autocad was used to get all the dimensions and bend angles figured out. My design (from scratch) allows the tower to fold down low enough to put the boat in the garage.

Yeah I designed one from scratch for a college engineering class.......it was just for fun though. I built my tower before I had access to AutoCad, so I just made a full size template using copper tubing and one of those little benchtop tubing benders.....

I've got one also drawn in Solidworks, alas after alot of research and design time it never got made

I would recommend using SolidWorks if it's an option.

it all right here guys... <BR> <BR><a href="http://inboardtalk.com/tower/tower.html" target="_blank">http://inboardtalk.com/tower/tower.html</a>

HairbandDude....very impressive job.

i am very preferential to Pro/E. although work requires UG right now. blah

not mine, guy lives down the street from me. I bet he took measurements of the the SAN tower. Looks like it anyway. <BR> <BR>Is everyone still paying SAN on the towers because of their patent?

very nice work crazy hair piece wearing guy. for my class we actually have to draw an existing part so i decided to draw the proflight tower off of a sanger v215. i went out and did all my measurements at semper speed and marine in madera Ca. anyways it's looking good i'll have to post it when i'm done. the curves of the tower seem to be the hardest part but i've pretty much worked that out. Because i'm super awesome. <BR> <BR>Great responses keep them coming.

solidworks is pretty user friendly... even more if you have that piping option... it's my third year in engeneering and I haven't modelised one yet... I guess I'm pretty lazy... maybe if I had a boat and no tower, it would motivate me... my goal is to draw a board with a cad program one day... pretty complex though...

okay well i'm actually ast home with at least a few seconds to spare finally so here is the .jpg of the tower i designed, mind you it was for an old outboard open bow boat <BR> <BR> <BR><img src="http://www.wakeworld.com/MB/Discus/messages/65919/200865.jpg" alt="Tower">