Is my tower adequate and what is it

[waupaca]

Hi all, I'm new to this forum and windmilling in general. I picked up a Baker Monitor 8" Type C hambone along with this tower and at an auction. Proceeding Ok so far repairs to the mill and pump but when I look at this tower closely I'm not sure what I have. The overall height was likely 36' or so.
The upper 20 feet shown in the pic is in decent shape but it doesn't resemble anything I've seen in the old baker catalogs. The corner angles are
2 1/2"x 1/8" and 20 foot with no splices in the upper section. The top configuration(pic) also doesn't look like what I've seen in the Baker catalog. The lower 16 feet corner angle was spliced below the last girt and is 2 1/2"x 3/16" unspliced angle. There is one set of diagonal (flat bar) tension braces on the upper section(pic) and one set in the upper bay of the lower section (also flat bar, shown on sketch) . 1 corner angle of the lower section is buckled just below the last girt(not sure how/when that happened). There is no evidence of tension cross bracing in the lower 8' section between the ground connection and the bottom girt. Probably why it failed?
My concerns:
If I add another set of diagonals in the lower 8' bay I will be ducking under them to access the pump? I'm thinking I could replace the lower diagonals in the upper bay with one set (blue dashed line) and shorten the lower section a bit to 15 feet.

also the first girt is located 10' -9" down from the the top of the tower. There is no tension bracing in the upper 1/2 of tower.

I'm in Wisconsin so I'd like to think this is a monitor tower. The hambone mill was definitely used with this tower. storm stay and lower bearing in place.
and I purchased a new monitor tower cap casting which fits the top of the tower. The upper section at least doesn't look "home made". There is only a ladder on the 20 foot upper section. The 2 existing pairs of flat bar diagonals look factory with riveted connections at the intersecting point

Any and all comments are appreciated
Thanks

[Wayne]

I would want some cross bracing going up to the bottom of the platform, tied to the bottom pieces.

[CTXmiller]

Welcome to the forum.

Looks like my Baker Monitor tower that came with my Monitor X. It is an old Baker tower. Mine had a lower section that I removed as I didn’t need/want that tall of a tower.

[waupaca]

That does look the same. Thanks. Do you recall how long the lower section was? is your monitor X an 8 foot mill?

[CTXmiller]

That does look the same. Thanks. Do you recall how long the lower section was? is your monitor X an 8 foot mill?

My Monitor X is a 10’ diameter open gear windmill. The section I removed was 10’ so it would have been a 30’ tower. The angle iron is 2.5”. The bottom section had some bends so that helped my decision to shorten it. Plus all my towers are less than 20’ tall.

The tower leg angle iron was the same at the tailbone angle iron so I used one leg that I removed to make a new tailbone. Someone tried to repair the original tailbone, but I wouldn’t trust their fix attempt .

[windybob]

Here, we have a man that likes working on extemely heavy windmill heads. LOL The Monitor Hambone, (Model S) is the very first completely self oiling head from Baker Mfg Co, in Evansville Wisconsin. Cast iron must have been very inexpensive back then, (from 1924 to 1936 this model) because they didn't skimp for this model. I think they borrowed the weight specs from the Navy battleship anchor specs.

That looks like a Monitor tower to me, and the top had a drop-in cast piece that centered the mill. Bearings to hold it up were at the bottom of the neckpipe, immediately under the stormstay in a ballcup. There was very little distance between the bottom of the head, and the tower top casting. That casting is easily lost, after some wear. Actually the tower top came together to hold it tight, but they are mostly loose. Also they are egged bad due to many years of wear.

Monitor towers always seemed under-braced to me, and the upper 10 or 12 feet was commonly twisted on larger mills, due to constant windload. There is no such thing as too much bracing, unless you can't get in the tower to do some work. So, have at it. I know you will have questions, as the Hambone is not complicated, however, difficult if you don't know a few tricks. First thing is don't drop the thing on your foot. The Model B is 6 1/2 ft, Model C is 8 foot , and the Model D is 10 foot. Just 3 sizes that it. They sold a jillion of those things, Altho I have many 6 and 8 footers, I don't have a 10. Never could connect up with Randy S in Nebraska before he sold out.

That was my very first windmill, tower, and project. My learning curve can be your information so you learn the hard way like I did.

[waupaca]

Thanks all for your generous comments. your right the hambone is a beast. The sales literature I read boasted that it was "bulletproof" At least I know I have an original monitor tower now. Sounds like two votes for "underbraced" which was my inclination as well. I sure don't want to go through all this and wake up some day with my hambone on the ground! I think I'm going to add girts around the platform area and diagonal brace down to the existing girt. Shorten the lower section to 10' and add a new set of longer diagonals. That should give me reasonable headroom to access the pump.

[mtblah]

Jeff , you now have the solution and a plan . Now it's just time & money . Here we go ............. keep us posted