Like riding a bike - reinvigorate the megatree

[AussiePhil]

Time for a new topper as I have increased the number of strings being used and the old one had got warped.

The old one was made by laminating some plywood between two sheets of steel... to lighten this one up a little as it would be bigger i used some 3mm Alu treadplate.
Printed out some router guides then really just used them to set the radius on the router circle jig. it can be fun routing aluminium especially all the little flakes that seem to go everywhere.
Next was to drill all the holes and about now i remembered to get a couple of photos.

secured to two plates to some scrape mdf and using a drilling template not in this photo initially drilled all the pilot holes at 3mm, went back and drilled the bolt holes for M6 at 6.5 and then the hook hanging holes at 8mm top, 9mm bottom plate



The center hole for the star mount pole at 32mm was drilled using a 32mm tungsten carbide forster bit.

the near end result is below, the 3d print is done in ABS and you can see how the strings attach to the topper.



Still on the printer is the topper to pole attachment section

 

[damona]

@AussiePhil how did it go. I have thought of doing the same thing, as I want to double the number of strings to from 8 to 16 in 180deg mega tree.
Have you had any windy days?
I assume your using Boscoyo mounting strips?
Where did you get the hooks from?

 

[AussiePhil]

@AussiePhil how did it go. I have thought of doing the same thing, as I want to double the number of strings to from 8 to 16 in 180deg mega tree.
Have you had any windy days?

I'm lucky enough that we get sheltered from really bad winds, the setup is not new in concept, it's how i've done the megatrees before and unless you fail to anchor the bottom of the string there are no issues

I assume your using Boscoyo mounting strips?

nope not even in the close to them, these are custom made from 19mm PET pallet strapping 1mm thick, drilled at 100mm spacing using a jig and diamond hole saw.
From memory the Boscoyo strip had just appeared in the states the same year (quite a few back now) and was not even vaguely getable in AU.... there will likely be a really old thread showing me drilling these years ago.

Where did you get the hooks from?

The metal j-hooks are Bunnings, the translucent brackets are my own custom design 3D printed in PETG

I have gone well if slowly.
new build thread for the tree started today as i started to put it up

A 38 x 50 strand MegaTree for 2021 - build and doco

Background: After five years away it wasn't hard to stay to something small to ease back into the game, over the years my megatrees have had anything from 40 vertical strands down to 24 depending on how the available strands got split up, yes that was plural trees :) This year for something...

auschristmaslighting.com

So the story is continued in that thread.