1) The angle iron legs are bent near the top to a near vertical position to mate with the upper tower assembly. I searched for a tower of this type for over a year and when I finally found one, I had a local welding shop make two more sets of angle iron legs for me. It turned out to not be that difficult. The angle is stock 1" by 1/8" angle iron and he made the bend without heating.
2) The upper tower assembly is a special unit. It is made up of an upper support plate and a lower support plate, connected by a 1 1/4" pipe. These support plates are stamped and could be reproduced, but not without special tools. The support plates are welded to the pipe. At the top is the slip ring assembly which is connected by copper straps to the terminal bolts on the upper support plate. The negative terminal may be grounded, but the positive terminal is insulated from the plate with insulating washers. So this upper tower assembly is a very important part of the Wincharger tower and these assemblies are valuable and hard to find.
1) The leg angle irons are simply straight pieces - no bends.
2) There are two cast iron pieces that fit snugly around the 1 1/4" pipe and have the correct angle to allow the straight leg angle irons to connect to the vertical pipe. These are obviously special pieces that simplify making the tower but if one didn't have them, they would be hard to find. The cast iron pieces, the 1 1/4" pipe and the tower legs are all held together by a pair of brackets bolted together.
The slip rings for this tower are exactly the same as for the Crosley tower. The slip ring pipe assembly is attached to the pipe at the top of the tower with split pipe joint which also provides the electrical connections. In the previous view, you can see that the top pipe assembly is just a pipe with a lower support plate. The lower support plate bolts to the tower legs.
Tower comparisons
In these pictures, you can see how the "radio" type towers are
quite a bit taller than the standard tower. Also, the "radio" towers can be
easily extended in height by just adding additional pipe above the tower,
then attaching the slip ring unit to the top of the pipe. This is explained
in detail (with lots of diagrams) in the Owner's Manuals. When extending
the height by adding a pipe, guy wires are needed at the top to control the tower.By the way, it just happened to start snowing (here in Dallas, on New Year's Eve) when I planned to take these pictures. But maybe the snow adds a little more interest to a very boring subject!