Stardomes

[Toddy]

Has anyone made one of these ?

I find the concept entrancing, even more so than the usual geodesic domes.
Also, anyone got any idea of where I can get bendable but flat plastic strip, maybe 5cm wide by 6m long ? I reckon I could coil up the strips into a bag like the pop up shelters and they'd lie flat in the back of the car.

http://stardome.jp/index-en.html

Thankfully Son1 speaks and reads Japanese because all his Mum manages is English, Lallans, a bit of Gaelic, a bit more French and schoolgirl Latin

cheers,
M

[helixpteron]

This language translation add on, Foxlingo, is something which I find invaluable.

It supports 71 languages and over 3,000 different language pairs and uses 31 online web page translator services.

You can configure it to translate selected text, the current web page and a whole lot more.

[caliban]

Wow Toddy! These are cool.

[w00dsmoke]

Plastic trunking for wiring is often thrown away at b sites, it,s flexable and strong n cheap as chips to buy.WS

[jdlenton]

Plastic trunking for wiring is often thrown away at b sites, it,s flexible and strong n cheap as chips to buy.WS

thats just what i was thinking lidding from 25mm trunking would work really well bu tit would need to be laid flat between use not to warp or twist EDIT 50mm lid would be stiffer


just had a look at the site I've built domes like this in the past out of bamboo beware they take alot of man power and time to erect they are not a quick set up item and these with the star seem more complex than the simple three frequency domes we built

having said that i would still build one as structures like these are as you say Toddy entrancing i find their elegant apparent simplicity beautiful and well worth the effort

[Toddy]

One of my basketmaking friends is seriously thinking about hazel rods for something like this

I think the tieing would take too long and it won't grip well on the plastic, but big glass fibre reinforced, shallow domed bolts, and wing nuts, should make it a much faster put up.

I like the idea of the inner tent/ public space of this dome too. I reckon the stardome would work for that too

http://www.wiltshirehumangivens.org/...dome_tent.html

cheers,
Toddy

[JohnC]

I like the look of that, would old collapsible fibre glass rods from tents work?

[Indoorsout]

I really like this might have a go at making a scale version to try it out.

[jdlenton]

I like the look of that, would old collapsible fibre glass rods from tents work?

that would do it too

hazel would be great to use Toddy I've had success lashing 2m pole together to make long lengths and pending them up

Drilling the glass fiber spars to bolt them would seriously weaken them when bent i recon some sort of cunning clamp would be the way forward with that idea IMO

J*

[Grebby]

I've made a 3 freq geo dome that is just over 7m in diameter.

I'll dig some photos out when I get home and post them up.

It went to Glastonbury with us once or twice and we had various vists from many people, some because they thought it was part of the festival and a lot of others because they had been told to turn up in x camping field and their friends were the ones with the biggest dome there.

It's a great space and is big enough and strong enough to put my 5 person mexican hammock up inside and still have a load of room left.

Cheers

Grebby

P.s. if you are looking at domes then take a look at http://www.desertdomes.com/

[huuggee]

The concept is really cool and seems to give a great space inside.
Looking at http://www.albioncanvas.co.uk/c2289/Geodesic-Domes.html reminds me the design is very much used in outdoor/mobile stages, so there is something in it.

The downside is, it is a lot of polage(sp?) and not the speediest shelter to erect.

[locum76]

A version of a geodesic dome tent I have seen which was easy to erect involved:

Using broom handles for the poles.

Using 6 inch long sections of 100mm PVC ducting for the joints. you drill holes of the same diameter as the broom handles in the correct position around each section, ie six holes drilled equidistant.

The broom handles are then inserted into the holes and held in place with pins.

does that make sense?

[JohnC]

I recall seeing something like that at Treefest,

[Toddy]

A version of a geodesic dome tent I have seen which was easy to erect involved:

Using broom handles for the poles.

Using 6 inch long sections of 100mm PVC ducting for the joints. you drill holes of the same diameter as the broom handles in the correct position around each section, ie six holes drilled equidistant.

The broom handles are then inserted into the holes and held in place with pins.

does that make sense?

That sounds exactly like the one I borrowed to take up to Loch Tay a couple of years ago for that *huge* Winter meet up.
I really, really liked all the useable space inside, but I always have a small car so I keep looking for smaller and more lightweight.
I've made a paper strip version of the star dome.........I think I really want one of these

cheers,
M

[Alexlebrit]

I made one a while back using living willow, it was only relatively small, but would be OK as a base for a bender. They go up far quicker than a standard geodesic though as there's fewer poles.

Sadly it was for a kids' park and the council in their wisdom decided that green living stuff wasn't as good as red/yellow/blue plastic stuff and grubbed it all up.

[caliban]

Toddy, you might find these interesting. The are selling a product, but they also pretty much tell you how to make one yourself.

http://www.shelter-systems.com/solor-dome.html

[Grebby]

Just got round to digging out some of the dome pics.

Here it is with no walls (how you are supposed to describe separate bits of a dome is beyond me) on dad's farm


The next 3 are from Glasto 2007




It's a PITA to lug about but as can be seen from the last pic it's BIG!
We had well over 30 people in there at some points.

If you have a look on desert domes there is a link to building a geodome from bamboo which may be of interest.

The main trouble with geodomes is that there are a lot of poles to lug about. If you just want shelter with no load bearing then a geodome is probably not the solution as they are very strong but this comes at the cost of weight. They are not the easiest things to put up either. Mine takes 5 people about 2.5 hours but then can pretty much withstand anything.

Cheers

Grebby

[Alexlebrit]

There's a lot of good info on Stardomes and Geodesics (and also tipis and yurts too) at http://www.simplydifferently.org/. The site owner's spent several years living full time in a range of these structures and really knows his stuff, including online calculators to work out the lengths of poles for you.

The HUGE advantage of stardomes over the geodesics is:

• 15 bendable struts (optional add 2 for the base), all the same length
• no connectors, no complicated calculations (e.g. to reduce waste)
• simple bow crossings, which can be tied with cords to provide stability

As you can see very different from a "traditional" geodesic.

The problem is though, the Japanese are making these from split bamboo, and we can't really get hold of this. Even if you can get hold of a large diameter bit of bamboo, you probably can't get the length, it'll be very expensive, and it'll have been dried and so a nightmare to split.

Of course, you could rake out your collection of spare aluminium dome tent poles, but then you may as well use a dome tent. I'm sure it could be made up with coppiced wood, using two or three bound together for each pole.

I'm also looking at using plywood. I reckon one 8'x4' sheets could potentially make a 15' (4.58 metre) diameter dome, which would be plenty big enough.

You'd need to cut the plywood into 1" wide strips, which would give you 45 + sawdust. They could be bound together, or bolted with an overlap, or some kind of collar fabricated even.

But that's as far as I've got without a trip to the timber merchants. I want to see what kind of thickness I'll need to balance strength, flexibility, and weight. I'm thinking something around 1/2 inch thick, but that's just off the top of my head.

And then cover with a tarp, or a parachute to start, make up a shaped cover if it looks like it'll work.

[FGYT]

the page on the paper one is usefull download the PDF (plus Japanize language ) the measurements on the PDF are in English metric

toget an idea of how one goes toghether etc
you can defiatly get plasic strip in that sort of cross section maybe from a window manufacuter etc they use it to trim the windows etc



ATB

Duncan

[jojo]

Don't know if that'll help, but you can get bamboos from these people, they do them up to 6metre long, and in various diameters.