Simple home brew wake tower

[samt]

After being around a few universal towers I decided I could build a tower that better suits my needs. I'll be posting pics as I go. I'm not concerned with it being a real high tower, we're not real athletic. Just high enough to walk under and make our water sports more enjoyable. Maybe get some junk off the floor too. Needs to fold down and allow me to use the cover I currently use. Also I'm a real cheap skate. So it happens I have most the stuff in my stash from building sand rails.

We're staring with some 5/8 studded heims, tubing bungs, a 2"x 1/4 piece of strap iron, some 1.5x.120 wall DOM tube and a 2" trailer ball.

I built the mounts today. Band sawed them down some. And welded to a 2x4" piece of the strap.


I have some rubber for an outer gasket. Inside the hull I'm gonna use PL professional to bed as big of 3/4" plywood as I can to sandwich inside the backing plate.

 

[rallyart]

Cool, Always nice to have extra Heim joints around. lol

 

[brian4321]

Nice job... towers have so many uses like, mounting speakers, towing skiers and wakeboarders , hanging wet towels and life jackets, heck my buddy likes doing pull ups off my tower

 

[samt]

Got a little done today. Front mounts.


Main hoop bent corners are 85* so there is a little slant to it.

 

[samt]

Got it done today! My brother helped me some today. Probably 10 man hours in it and $150, I don't remember what I paid for those heims, but they are just the cheap ones speedway sells. I still need to run wire and my speakers though. Also going to add some sort of rack for boards. I may buy a bimini first so I can make sure they don't interfere.
2 bolts let it lay where you can get it in the garage door. My tarp works on it as it is. But my 85* corners made it where it hits the windshield so it won't lay flat enough to tarp it over it while laying the tower back. It has to go forward.

I didn't measure the height above water line to the ball, but the bottom of the bar clears my head by 3" and I'm a good 6'4" with shoes. So I'm gonna guess it's 6'10"-7' above the water when the boats on a plane. I'm not sure what's "standard" but I suspect I'm on the low side.

 

[samt]

Next project will be a simple surf gate. Try to swing it before church so I can lake it up after church.

 

[theBrownskull]

Nice job.

 

[brian4321]

That looks great, you'll love it

 

[honda400ex2003]

thats awesome and inspirational! i might have to use the same setup instead of buying one for my boat.

thanks for the pics and great work!
steve

 

[samt]

Thanks guys! Tried it out Sunday and everyone agreed it was a success.
Wife bought me some cheap tower speakers, we found a review in a wake board magazine online and it highlighted them as the best cheap ones. Will see.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B008D...?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I think I'll use a conservative size amp and see what I get out of them. My brother says he has a small one I can have 150watt or a big one My old boat has a 80 watt in it, but I doubt that's enough.

 

[rallyart]

Nice job samt. Are you going to do the surf gate stuck on the side, or mounted on the transom?

 

[samt]

Nice job samt. Are you going to do the surf gate stuck on the side, or mounted on the transom?

For now I'm just going to do a plywood one that slides over the swim deck and ratchet straps to a transom hook. Eventually I may build one of the transom mounted ones with an actuator.

 

[samt]

Surf gate.

Just made from junk in an hour while I was babysitting so it rough. But works great.


Got some speakers!


And now a shade. Built from 3/4 conduit and the wife sewed me some canvas.

 

[samt]