June 2011
This project was done as a follow-up to my 20 foot tower. I was curious to see how tall I could take a much skinnier tower. I was surprised by the results.
This tower had a 4x4 hollow base which I built for 35 stories. After that, I built a 3x3 for 10 stories, reduced to a 2x2 for one level, and then finished with a 7 story column as a spire. I fenced the bottom of the spire to help taper the tower a bit more. The tower was more stable than I had anticipated it would be, which goes to show that towers can be much taller and skinnier than I had originally thought. From what I learned with this tower, I have confidence that I could build a tower of world record height without going larger than a 9x9 base. As soon as I have a taller ladder (or a scissor lift) I plan on trying to build this tower again, but even taller. There's something incredibly attractive to me about skinny towers. You can watch a timelapse of the cardstruction and a video of the knockdown below. |
Below is a crude video of the knockdown. I apologize for the noisy image (I accidentally left the camera in a high gain setting) and for there being no sound (I forgot to check the mic levels). Unfortunately, you only get one chance to film these things...