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.