History of Hemp Dome

My wife and I made a 16 ft dome in our garage with a few tools and a bunch of emt steel conduit.

Our goal>   To make a temporary shelter while we build a bigger more family friendly dome.  To be a workshop, kitchen, bedroom, living area, and storage.

The inspiration came from when I was 13 – 16 and I would read Kung Fu and Solider of Fortune magazines, and in the back of the mags there were offers for geodesic dome kits.   I always knew I could build one myself and have intended to and planned it out for about 20 years.

After reading some Buckmister (Bucky) Fuller materials and some plans online, I came up with my own plans.
I used www.desertdomes.com  extensively, as well as other random blogs.
(more on Bucky Fuller here:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geodesic_dome )

This is a link to our plans.

https://www.hempdome.com/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=4.0;attach=3;image

I have a booklet that I made, I will scan in my rough sketches and upload them here in the future.

I found it to be very time consuming using basic hand tools, and semi-time consuming even with proper shop tools.

You can see the process that I used in this video with the shop tools that I bought mostly at Harbor Freight.  I don’t have many examples of using just basic hand tools, except for a few still pictures that I will include in this post (check back later)
RE:  http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/15750021

The basic tools you will need is.

hammer
vise
hacksaw with a metal cutting blade
drill with a 9/16th metal drill bit
Measuring tape
Sharpie/marker

To save time and get more precise measurements and cuts you may want

12 ton (or better) shop press
drill press
reciprocating saw
A series of clamps, preferably pipe clamps and vise grips.

You can see the completed project at this link here:   https://hdtradingpost.com/dome/index.html

Im working on the next phase up, to the full scale model.  I am working with architectural software and I will eventually present my plans to an architect to get my plans revised and approved.
With the pace I am working right now, with so many distractions.  I expect the work will be completed no sooner than 2014.

Its not that it is a huge amount of work, I just continue to find myself busy and distracted from these projects.

But I will document my progress during that build too.  I will also include my plans when I am finished with them.

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