Better Domes and Gardens


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September, 2008



It seems like just yesterday when we first started talking about and planning to build a complete sphere. Here we are in September and we have this huge ball on the beach here..I started cutting the wood needed for it the first week of Aug after the film festival here. I needed 270 pieces, 60 pieces known as A, 90 pieces known as B, and 120 pieces labelled C.
The hot summer sun was totally enjoyable as I crafted the required struts and 92 hubs. Assembly went smoothly with very few troubles. We went to the extra work of adding metal strapping to each of the intersections. The extra strength will be good should we need to lift the ball onto a nest, or berth, at a later time. We also have a length ABS pipe that goes straight through, from one vertex to the opposite vertex, again this added strength will come in handy for lifting purposes. Half inch plywood was carefully cut into triangles , to skin the sphere. Each plywood triangle is nailed with galvanized 2 inch nails every 3 inches..The structure gets stronger and stronger with each bit of effort added.

the framed geodesic sphere is being skinned with exterior half inch spruce plywoodthe way the form is built using the fastenning system shown here is quite effective  for construction Beachball is being made ready for paint, The small spaces left between sheets of Plywood are being filled with epoxy resin, bondo, to help, along with paint to be added next after sanding, in the waterproofing,

It's been going along slowly but never the less progressing, I've just added 4 gallons of epoxy to fill small spaces an voids in the plywood skin. The beachball is almost ready for it's first real coat of paint, but not until I give the whole ball a good going over with the beltsander.
The sphere sat for a year near the busy road. We were hoping that one of the neighbourhood golf courses would snap it up for use asa sign, everyone keeps telling us how much it looks like a golf ball. We had no interest from them and with our general disgust with the Town of Innisfil have abandonned the idea of selling it to the town as a sign, at the 400 highway and Innisfil Beach Rd, interchange. It could have been a nice landmark for them, but they seem to be set on causing us trouble, so we will proceed with a new idea for the sphere.
I built a cradle for it, and on October 20th called our good neighbour, Simcoe Concrete Forming to help us move the ball to a location near the main dome with access to the golf facility, Innisbrook. The lift went smoothly and without troubles, taking less than an hour of time. We were very pleased with the expert skills provided by Simcoe Concrete Forming while hoisting the ball to its cradle. We expect to proceed with work on the sphere in the coming months.

DOME COUNTRY THE NEW DOMENSION

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