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@clefty
I'm based in W London, near Hangar Lane, you're welcome to the pipe if you want to come and get it.
I haven't unfortunately got many useful in progress pics, but I do have the original plans I made for it, which has measurements etc. I've scanned them into a PDF, but its too big to post here, so I've stuck it in my skydrive to download, the link below should work - let me know if not
https://skydrive.live.com/redir?resid=D0201885E012443A!216&authkey=!AM4orP16z5eShcM&ithint=folder%2c.pdf
The calculations at the top was to work out how much rope I needed, you can adapt them for the length of pipe you have.
The cross brace was the important part, I used some scrap wood and cut it so it would just fit inside the pipe, then cut each piece and glued them together to form a cross piece. I then drilled and screwed the pipe to secure the cross piece in at both ends. (my recent woodwork course helped a lot on this bit)
At the bottom I then got a piece of 30 x 30 ply and drilled that to the cross piece on the bottom- this proved a little tricky when I went to do the top one as you had to do a bit of guessing as to where to drill. If i did it again I would attach the bases to the cross pieces before I secured them into the pipe. Make sure the top board is one of the last things you attach though, as you have to have access to weight it at the bottom.
On the bottom I then secure the smaller base onto a bigger piece of ply 50 x50 I think, and used silicon sealant to seal the pipe to the small board. I then poured some sand into the top to weigh it down - you don't need that much - remember you still want to be able to carry it, I just put enough in so It wouldn't topple over very easily.
Once that was dry, I then painted the whole thing with PVA glue and wound round the rope very tightly, when I got to the top I used speed clamps to keep it there and left it overnight. After I put the top board on I then cut a load of old carpet to size and glued it on, I folded it over the edges at the top and clamped that overnight too - its still going strong.
The only thing I actually bought was the rope and the pipe, the rest I already had - I'm kinda lucky that because we are doing up our house, our garage has become a full workshop, we had quite a lot of offcut wood from replacing various things around the house and I found a load of old carpet in the loft when we bought the place.
If anyone wants to come round for a cat post building session I'm happy to help if you supply rope, pipe and some wood. You could just as easily use MDF or anything you find in a skip to make this. The tools I used were, drill, saw, glue, clamps, screws and a countersink for the screws so the heads didnt stick out. Also it really helps if you draw it out like I did.
oh, and I got the rope on ebay, from this guy. http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/NEW-SISAL-natural-rope-6mm-8mm-10mm-Strong-U-choose-size-length-cat-post-etc-/121062634762?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_3&var=&hash=item1c2fe5350a
Any more questions let me know!