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I was actually surprised to find out that most of you brace your towers on the outside, i regularly brace on the inside. I do not build with a jig, i use a 2d foam board and when im done with two sides, i pin to the ceiling standing up and brace on the inside again. Does anyone else build like this?

scioly2345 wrote:I was actually surprised to find out that most of you brace your towers on the outside, i regularly brace on the inside. I do not build with a jig, i use a 2d foam board and when im done with two sides, i pin to the ceiling standing up and brace on the inside again. Does anyone else build like this?

I build exactly the same, but i brace on the outside, it gets you more contact area with the frame piece. Pieces on the inside should be used where there is going to be compression forces. For an area with a lot of stress ( such as the bottom of the tower) laminate a 1/8 piece on the inside with a 3/32 x 1/4 on the outside that goes on top of the 1/8 piece.

M017 wrote:

scioly2345 wrote:I was actually surprised to find out that most of you brace your towers on the outside, i regularly brace on the inside. I do not build with a jig, i use a 2d foam board and when im done with two sides, i pin to the ceiling standing up and brace on the inside again. Does anyone else build like this?

I build exactly the same, but i brace on the outside, it gets you more contact area with the frame piece. Pieces on the inside should be used where there is going to be compression forces. For an area with a lot of stress ( such as the bottom of the tower) laminate a 1/8 piece on the inside with a 3/32 x 1/4 on the outside that goes on top of the 1/8 piece.

I have found that the bracing is stronger in between. If the bracing is sandwiched in between the two sides instead of on top or behind, I'm pretty sure that the strength multiplies. That being said, its harder to do accurately compared to on top/behind.

We brace on the outside so that adjacent sides can line up perfectly with each other. If you brace on the inside, the adjacent side braces either need to fall above or below the face side braces... 2 pieces of bracing cannot occupy the same space... We feel that if the braces are not perfectly aligned, it can result in a torsional reaction by not being symmetrical.

I use a 3D jig, which makes it incredibly easy and fast to build on the outside (5 hour towers). The main thing as many have talked about is that the middle brace connecting the chimney and the base should be in between the two, rather than on the inside or out.

cheese wrote:I use a 3D jig, which makes it incredibly easy and fast to build on the outside (5 hour towers). The main thing as many have talked about is that the middle brace connecting the chimney and the base should be in between the two, rather than on the inside or out.

Thats what im doing because the chimney and your base are not at the same angle. The downward force from the chimney is pushing straight down, not along your column, so it would compress the top of your base half.

Outside, I now use zigzag braces instead of x's. However, when I did x's before, I did one diagonal member on the outside and another on the inside. Any suggestions or comments.