DOOOOOME! I'm making a DOME!
Right, so my garden shed is...well, kinda crap. It looks like it used to be a chicken coop, and looks like it was cobbled together about 50 years ago and randomly patched at multiple points since then.
...soooo.....new shed time. :D And as you may have guessed, I'MA MAKE A DOME! :D A geodesic 1V dome, to be exact.
Why? 'cause I like domes and domes are cool, that's why. :P
Also, according to my calculations, the materials will cost about half what the materials for a similarly sized normal shed would. AND IT'S A DOME! :D
Right, so I've never actually built a dome before, so today I made a scale(ish) model out of dowels and tubing. I got the idea from this site, where they recommended using 1/8" dowels and 1/8" ID tubing to stick them together at the corners. Now, there were a few problems with that. First, I couldn't find any 1/8" dowels at Home Depot, second, once I stopped to think about it, I decided I wanted to use much thicker dowels for the size model that I wanted to make, and third, I remembered a while ago I picked up a bunch of 3/8" ID 1/2" OD watercooling tubing from Microcenter for, like, $3 for 8'. So, since that was thin-wall tubing like I wanted, I decided to just get 3/8" dowels instead, which worked out much better size-wise.
I got the rough design from that same site, which gave me an idea of how to shape the dome and what sort of connectors I would need to make.
Now, the shed I'm going to make with 8' struts because, well, that's an easy size to make because I can just use 8' boards...and more than 8' would just be really freakin huge and completely unnecessary. I decided I wanted to make about a 10:1 scale model, but that would have required me using 9.6" struts...and the dowels came in 4' lengths, so that would have required me wasting a lot of dowel...so I used 9" struts instead, so this is actually a 10-2/3:1 scale model...oh well. :P
I forgot to take pictures of the cut dowels and hose pieces initially, so let's start with the base done!
Then I just had to turn this:
Into a bunch of these:
..well, except that I forgot I needed 5-way connectors, not 6-way....and I didn't realize that until after I had already killed my fingers making three 6-way pieces. :(
Oh well, eventually I got here:
And then here! :D
So, stay tuned. I won't be making the full-size one until I get a job, but I have an interview tomorrow, so...*crosses fingers* Anyways, in the mean time I'll be finalizing my plans for how I'll be making the full-size one. I mentioned I'll be making it out of wood, yes? Well, I looked around online and the only plans I can find for making geodesic domes out of wood all involve special, expensive adapters, fancy multi-sided joint pieces, or lots of hinges and sawdust and glue....and I thought those were all just silly, so I'm designing one that I can make entirely out of 2x4's and plywood (well, and screws) with no cuts that can't be done with a standard mitre saw. So, I'll post those as I finalize them.
Re: DOOOOOME! I'm making a DOME!
Looks good. Good luck on the interview. Hopefully its a job you really like.
Re: DOOOOOME! I'm making a DOME!
Thanks. It does sound like a pretty cool job, but I won't go too much into it unless I get it...and know what it really is instead of what I'm inferring from the job listing. ;)
It's kinda funny, I've been in kinda a funk the last month or so, but the giant robot dude's videos gave me a kick in the pants to start working on fun stuff again...and now instead of being depressed and apathetic about not having work, I'm just annoyed that I don't have a job to fund my projects. :P Well, hopefully I won't have to worry about that much longer...anyways, off to sleep so I can wake up early-ish tomorrow.
Re: DOOOOOME! I'm making a DOME!
Good luck at the interview.:crossed:
Hexagons could drop your corners to 3 per vertex.
8' struts are going to make this shed huge no matter how many sides it has. I would calculate the square footage you think you need (and then add, say, 50% :D) since cutting off 2x4s is cheaper than buying additional plywood and other materials. You'll have a nice shed to store scrap lumber in anyway!
Re: DOOOOOME! I'm making a DOME!
Sounds interesting but you realize that some people might think it's a radar dome and drop bombs on you, they are watching you know :D
Re: DOOOOOME! I'm making a DOME!
Sweet! I had a feeling this was GRP inspired just from the title actually ;)
Looks good though man, sounds like it should be pretty fun to work on too. Good luck with t'interview too, I hate them buggers :( Keep us posted on your progress!
Re: DOOOOOME! I'm making a DOME!
Quote:
Originally Posted by
mDust
Good luck at the interview.:crossed:
Hexagons could drop your corners to 3 per vertex.
8' struts are going to make this shed huge no matter how many sides it has. I would calculate the square footage you think you need (and then add, say, 50% :D) since cutting off 2x4s is cheaper than buying additional plywood and other materials. You'll have a nice shed to store scrap lumber in anyway!
Yeah, but hexagons are a lot harder to make and the benefits of using hexagons are much smaller with small domes, and especially small, low-resolution domes like this one. Besides, like you said, 2x4's are cheap. ;) [EDIT]Plus, even though the number of corners per vertex would drop, I think the number of vertexes and the number of struts would probably rise a lot.[/EDIT] Oh, and using 8' struts, covering each face will take one full 4x8 sheet with practically no waste. Though, I'm only doing the lower surfaces with plywood; the upper surfaces I want to do with some sort of translucent stuff..I'll have to go wander around Home Depot or something and find something good. If I were to cover all the sides with plywood though, using some nice 23/32 stuff, current cost estimate is ~$250. Bump that up to probably ~$300 if I put in a wood floor...which I probably will but might no...I haven't decided yet. That comes out ~$100 less than my estimated materials cost for a similarly sized, more traditional, design (10'x10', single-slant roof sloping from 10' in from to 8' in back).[EDIT]..nvm, checked my numbers again, and they're actually about the same cost. But domes are so cool! :D[/EDIT] For comparison, the closest thing I could find real quick on Lowes' website was this 10'x10' wooden barn-like-thing, for almost $900! :eek:
According to my calculations, 8' struts should give me about 110sqft of floor space, and with the low-resolution design I'm using, my side walls will be about 7' tall (7.05', to be precise) before the real sloping-in starts, with a peak of about 11' inside.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Beta-brain
Sounds interesting but you realize that some people might think it's a radar dome and drop bombs on you, they are watching you know :D
Hmm, I do live near Goddard Space Center... :freakedout: :whistler:
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Munty
Sweet! I had a feeling this was GRP inspired just from the title actually ;)
Looks good though man, sounds like it should be pretty fun to work on too. Good luck with t'interview too, I hate them buggers :( Keep us posted on your progress!
Heheheh, yup! His dome got me thinking along those lines, and a bit of research made me decide a fully wooden design was best for my purposes, since I want to have hard, permanent, walls mounted directly on the frame.
Thanks for the interview well-wishes, everyone. I'll update here afterwards (it's at 2pm EDT).
Re: DOOOOOME! I'm making a DOME!
Quote:
Originally Posted by
mDust
Good luck at the interview.:crossed:
Hexagons could drop your corners to 3 per vertex.
I believe you mean pentagons. If you use hexagons, you would just get a flat sheet, not a dome- each vertex has a 120 degree angle, so 3 hexagons makes a full 360 degrees, meaning no curvature.
I can't wait to see this full size! Good luck with the build.
Re: DOOOOOME! I'm making a DOME!
This.... is gonna be massive.
Re: DOOOOOME! I'm making a DOME!
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Technochicken
I believe you mean pentagons. If you use hexagons, you would just get a flat sheet, not a dome- each vertex has a 120 degree angle, so 3 hexagons makes a full 360 degrees, meaning no curvature.
That doesn't make any sense. I meant hexagons. A dome can be made out of any symmetrical polygon and many asymmetrical polygons.