Homemade wakeboard tower

Has anyone made a homemade wakeboard tower is so what did you use. Where did you get the supplies and about how much did it cost you?

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haha that's funny!!

That is true love for the sport. You can't joke on that.

A long time ago, my friend and I made homeade clamp on style. His grandad had a metalworking shop and could make anything. We bought the parts at the shipyard scrap pile for $40 and it was made from aluminum. I'll see if I have any pics.

(Message edited by 1boarder_kevin on December 10, 2007)

No doubt they love the sport, but it looks like the neighbors picnic table sponsored them.

http://bierbower.net/diytower/home.htm

hopefully they used treated lumber

Several makers will sell you components like the mounts even if you don't buy their tower. You can get sluminum or steel bent by a fabricator that has a mandrel bender for the tubing size you wish to use. The metal is not expensive but the welding and bending can be. Good luck.

ah well grasshopper, not a tower per se....but it has served us well for 8 years......stainless steel 2.5 inch pipe I believe and 1 inch braces......steel was free and step father is a welder...like art said the metal is cheap...and any steel places in your area can supply the metal.the ole thing can come down in a minute...the braces are connected with pipe compression fittings.




(Message edited by absoluteboarder on December 10, 2007)

Thanks guys i will definetly check into doing it myself. Any of those guys live in Georgia??

I've live in GA and have built and helped build a few pylons. No towers though. My current pylon has a large wooden base, uses a 6' floor jack for the pole (the kind you use under houses, not the kind you use on cars), and ties down with straps to the bow and lift rings on the back of the boat. No permanent modifications to the boat but it does take up a lot of room in the back and I had to shorten it to accomodate a bimini top. It cost about $50 in supplies I didn't already have (the jack, a hole saw, and some galvanized ring shank nails for the base). Next year, I'm looking at going tower. Not sure if I'll build or buy though.

I built one years ago and vowed to never do so again with the tower manf. out there it pays to buy for me. Here are some pics if you want the drawings I think I still have them and you would just need the aluminum and then find a bender. I made the mounts and welded it up on my own but it was a pain to get it how I wanted. If you want what ever plans I have left email me my email is in my profile.

Well i have a seadoo challenger and there is no way i can access under the fiberglass so i'm not real sure how i would mount it cause i could'nt put a piece of wood or somekind of support under it. Unless i drill all the way through the hull and that would be a big bolt. What ya'll think?

Adhesives are much better than lag bolts.

Isn't the Challenger the one that Sea Doo has a tower for now? How do they mount the tower?

Ha!
Wakeboardin, the tower on your SeaRay looks great! That was my first power boat. Back in the early 90s I had an 87 SeaRay 170 bowrider with the 3.0 liter I/O. People laugh now days, but it got me & my buddies out on the water all the time, helped me learn how to drive a boat, ride wakeboard & AirChair, and didn't go thru hardly any gas. Plus it only cost me like $8000. I bought a Waylon tripod extended pylon from someone on the Wake List & we ruled Lake Washington before ANYONE had extended pylons or towers. People stared at that boat everywhere we went. I sold it for $5500 after 4 years & upgraded to a Mastercraft 205.
So laugh all you like, but if it runs descent & gets you out on the lake safely without breaking the bank, GO FOR IT!

Bill,
thats funny, this was my first boat and I had the 4.3 V6 and also bought mine for 8K but after stereo and tower added it sold for 10K. My last boat was a BU VLX and now I am on the hunt for a newer one. But I understand on the low cost and never using much gas as well. I had about 200.00 wrapped up in the tower for bending fees and 80.00 for materials the rest was laying around.


Ben,
I found a Sea Doo X20 that has the tower and it looks like they remove the speaker to gain access to the mount location. I am not sure of yours but post some pics and we'll all try to guide you. If you need more help on how to mount it send me your number and I can call you and try to help on my dime.

Steve
wit

100% homemade

Old FCT w/ custom work

Yea i will definetly get some pics up when i get the boat back it is actually in the shop. Thanks again

wakeboardin That is a sick tower you made!

All you guys made some great stuff!

My lake has what could be the single most ghetto tower in the history of mankind. That wooden one at the top at least looks like a lot of thought went into it. The guys on my lake built a square frame out of 4x4s, made a hook for the rope, added some internal support for the frame, and then used four ropes to brace the entire thing. Chances are it's bolted into the deck of the boat, or the sides, but from what I've seen, it's a pretty impressive rig if it actually works properly...

Art - what are you suggesting with the adhesives comment? To attach a tower to the deck?

IMO, homemade towers are nonesense for boats with any significant value since the homemade tower will depreciate the boat while a nice name-brand tower will appreciate the boat. Add liability on top and a homemade tower becomes even less attractive. So, I would work an extra job to buy a name-brand tower if money was the issue.

Yeah trace, adhesives can be effectively used for bonding something to the deck. I think the problem with it would most likely be the strength of the bond from the gel coat to the fiberglass. That might not hold up well enough so, unless you could test it, it would be risky.
I like the idea of the speaker location to get access to install a backing plate. Even if there is no speaker there the grill would attractively cover a hole you had to make to get access inside the deck.

Hey GD, just because your buying a name brand tower doesn't mean your not going to have issues. I have seen a number of catastrophic failures of name brand towers, from guys pulling the entire structure off the boat on a rough landing, to the tower completely collapsing due to rough water conditions. And several failures have happened fairly recently to name brand towers made in the last 3 or 4 years.
The bottom line is any tower is only as safe as the quality of the installation. And a guy who is capable of fabricating a tower on his own is probably very capable of doing a descent install.

I'm will Bill, our past two towers have been 100% solid and safe... just on our lake I've seen two name brand towers destroy/tear out gelcoat/fiberglass... I don't know the specifics if it was owners fault, or just the towers doing that randomly... but ours have been nothing but golden, knock on wood

I built a tower. It is a lot of work and pretty expensive. I would encourage you to just buy one.

I built mine because I needed it to fold down lower than the windshield to fit in my garage and I am a sucker for doing these projects. Hindsight is 20/20 but if I were to do it over I would have probably just bought one for a couple of reasons. It would have been done much sooner and it would not have cost all that much more.

All that said I like my tower. It does everything that I want it to and I think it looks good.

Forgot to say. There is a picture of it in my profile.

I've designed the towers and had them built on the last 2 boats I've owned. Like Jon, I also built mine because nothing on the market at the time would fold down low enough to fit under a 7' garage door. The last one I built was in 2001, and I probably wouldn't do it now because there are a lot of nice aftermarket choices out there. You're also assuming some liability when you build your own stuff.

Wow, you all did a sick job on the DIY towers. Do you all have access to pneumatic pipe benders or what?

He has access to Skylon's dumpster. HA.

Boardbag.com sells all the weld peices and mounting feet in their hardware section, all you would need to do is hookup with someone that has a bender and order 1/8" thick, 2" outer diameter aluminum or ss pipe.