well, not quite as productive of a weekend as I had hoped.
Friday on the way home, I stopped at lowes to get the schedule 40 pipes that I needed. The ones with UV protection for electrical conduit are significantly cheaper than those for water, so that's what I got.
Turns out the distance from the left rear corner of the trunk of my car to the right front corner of the passenger compartment is just a few inches too short. I did manage to get about 10 of the pipes in before no more would fit. So then I had to run them out the front passenger window. When I got finished, I noticed that the windshield had developed a lovely pattern of cracks.
On top of that, it started to sprinkle on the way home, and the heat barely offset the cold coming in that window.
I got home and unloaded the car, but was in such a foul mood and was so cold that I didn't work as carefully as normal... I discovered Saturday morning that I left the passenger window down all night, it rained all night, and there's good evidence that one of the cats chose to spend the night inside the car.
Anyway... on to the actual work. I bought 32 10' sections of conduit. These have 1 end flared so that you can glue them end to end without a coupler. So, dad and I glued 2 together, and then set about finding the right length to have a decent arc. I was wanting to have the dome rise be between 4' and 5', but dad talked me into only having about 3' of rise in the center. He is very concerned about wind load. So, to get a 3' rise it is about 17'4" of length needed. We cut the first section where we had marked, and used it as the reference for all the other sections. Dad had the idea to take the cut off bit and start with it when glueing up the next piece, and so on. As if we had just glued it all together then cut the right length each time from that one long piece. Anyway, we only needed 16 ribs, and had 3 whole and 1 partial piece left over.
After taking a break, I pulled out the furring strips, and realized that they're all cut to exactly 8', unlike most lumber where there's an extra 2 to 4 inches. So, back to the drawing board for how we're going to attach the furring strips to the ribs. We decided that instead of perfect 2' spacing, it would be ok to have the rib at the ends of the boards be a little bit closer. Also, by adding a 17th rib we could accomplish 2 things. The first was that we wouldn't have a section where 2 boards overlapped 2 ribs, and the second was that we would have an odd number meaning there would be a definitive central rib to align with the center of the length. So Dad and I glued up another rib, ending with 1 full and 1 partial piece of conduit left over.
So then we started attaching the furring strips to the conduit. We got one section completed, and most of the second section completed and ran out of washers. So, a trip to a hardware store or lumber yard was called for. Since I had no cash, and it seemed stupid to use a credit card for an inexpensive item like a box of washers, we decided to take my truck and go to the lumber yard nearest home (84 lumber), and also pick up 4 16' regular 2x4s for the remaining 4 rafters. Well, turns out this 84 lumber is doing inventory, so half the store is off limits (with yellow caution tape everywhere). Also, the only washers they have are galvanized, and the entire selection of fasteners was extremely anemic. Many shelves were empty or only sparsely populated. The lumber yard was also rather empty. I suspect this one is going out of business but they just haven't told anyone yet.
After we got back home, it was rather late and Dad and I were both tired. We decided to put up the 4 rafters (working in the air) instead of working on the next roof sections (crawling around on damp ground). So we got that done, and called it a night.
Today, we finished assembling the entire roof on the ground. I have pictures of this
here. Each 8' section is detachable from the next 8' section, with 4 ribs per section, and the 4th section having 5 ribs. Hopefully this will be manageable enough to lift into place.
We did lift into place the one section that has the central (9th) rib. However, the wind was picking up and clouds were rolling in and it looked like rain, so we decided to stop for the day. Dad then strapped the section down to the rafters so the rain won't blow it away this week.
This week I need to purchase the anchors and straps dad wants installed for wind reasons. This coming weekend we plan to raise the remainder of the roof, and fasten it down tightly. The plan is to drill 7/8ths inch holes in the header for the ends of the pipes to land in, then put a screw through the end of the pipe into the header. On top of that will be a furring strip clamping it down. It won't be coming loose any time soon. ;D
Also, we want to run a row of furring strips down the center of the rafters to maintain their spacing. Additionally, we'll run a few diagonally to strenghten the entire box at the top. It'll be inconvenient working around them but it will be much safer.
All of that needs to be complete before the first of the plastic goes on. Skinning this thing won't be easy with the constant wind load we have here. Hopefully we can do that by the weekend of the 22nd.
Ray, your comments about leaving extra material when skinning the tent are good. We have been planning that all along. I'm not sure exactly what we'll be putting on the extra material at the bottom... probably some mulch as we have a few tons of it lying around.
I've also got to remember to leave a couple of extension cords running out underneath the wall before we skin it. ;D
jim
