Make a Geodesic Dome From Steel Tubing

Here on the Kibbutz, we are celebrating 50 years since the founding. We have a group that shares a workspace for woodworking and metalworking. We decided to donate our time and build.. a Geodesic Dome!

Interested in making a Geodesic Dome Greenhouse? https://amzn.to/2Aiqg4i

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I'm not going to give exact measurements here since it is likely that you'll want to build a dome of your own size. There are all sorts of dome calculators online. We used this one:

http://www.domerama.com/calculators/3v-geodesic-do...

There are different types of domes and we are making one of the simpler ones: 3V 3/8.

We cut the two lengths of tubing necessary and crushed the ends using a hydraulic press.

You'll have to drill many, many holes.

If you have a drill press this will go much faster. We didn't, but we did have a drill mounted to a stand, which did help make this go faster. First we drilled small pilot holes and then we drilled our the final size. We are using M8 bolts and the holes fit these semi-loosely. Don't push down hard as you will likely snap or dull your bit. Let the bit do the work.

As you can see the ends are pointy and we can't have kids slicing open their feet while climbing on this.

We cut off the ends of the pointy bits and rounded everything off. No we didn't do this safely and yes I've gotten a lot of shit about this all around the internet. I'm ok with that as it's a good learning experience!

Each end was bent so that when we bolt them together they will lay more or less flat.

You'll get a feel for how big it is going to be. Ours was 6m in diameter, and 2.5m in height.

We built the top first and worked our way down.

And there you go! You now have an awesome Geodesic Dome!