The Dome Designer Builder's Manual

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The Dome Designer Builder's Manual provides you with comprehensive, step-by-step instructions for turning the plans you generate with Dome Designer into a dome. These instructions start with how to buy materials, and lead you through building a foundation, creating the parts for your dome, assembling it, anchoring it to the foundation, and covering it and finishing it. These instructions are full of carefully explained details, diagrams and photographs of actual dome building, so you can't go wrong!

The Builder's Manual covers the following topics: (Click on any topic to get a preview, or scroll down the page.)

• Selecting Materials and Buying Parts
• Building a Foundation
• Preparing Struts, Verticies and Plates
• Assembling the Dome
• Anchoring the Dome
• Finishing and Covering the Dome

The First Step:
Selecting Materials and Buying Parts (Top)

In this section you will learn how to use the Materials List generated by Dome Designer to select materials for building your dome, and how to determine how much of what to buy. Here you will get answers to questions such as "How many sheets of plywood will I need to cut 88 verticies?" as well as advice for selecting lumber and tubing, what sizes to use for everything from the light and portable dome to the hurricane-proof shelter.

The Second Step:
Building a Foundation (Top)

The next step in building a dome is to lay the foundation. Using the Foundation Plans generated by Dome Designer, building a foundation is a straight forward process. Here are detailed instructions for a number of different types of foundations, including simple and temporary solutions as well as concrete and wooden box and stem wall style foundations. This section gives you step-by-step instructions, and shows you how to use the plans to lay out a foundation properly on the ground, how to build it, and how to avoid common mistakes which builders who have prior experience with rectilinear buildings tend to make.

The Third Step:
Preparing Struts, Verticies and Plates (Top)

Here is where you will learn to use the templates and plans generated by Dome Designer to build the parts for your dome. Dome Designer's designs allow you to build domes out of materials readily available at any good building supply store. This part of the builder's manual, which consists of several chapters, includes complete step-by-step instructions and plenty of diagrams and pictures to teach you all you need to know to build struts, verticies and plates. Even if you've never built a dome before, you will have all of the details you need to build it right the first time around!

Assembling the Dome (Top)

Once your parts have all been fabricated, you're ready to assemble them. This section of the Builder's Manual will show you how to use the Basic Triangles generated by Dome Designer to construct your dome on-site. You will learn where to start and how to proceed to make dome building a fun and exciting experience. This includes tricks of the trade, like how to jack up your dome as you build each new level, and what to do if you run into various problems.

Anchoring the Dome (Top)

In this section, you will learn how to attach your dome to its foundation securely. Generally when you build a dome on the ground, it will want to spread out bigger than the foundation. Only when it is properly anchored at the right locations will the dome achieve the full strength that domes are famous for. Anchoring your dome is easy, using the Foundation Plan and a few simple tricks we'll teach you here.

Finishing and Covering the Dome (Top)

If you build a strut-and-vertex style dome, you will probably want to cover it with something. In this section you will learn how to do it with a variety of materials. Dome Designer gives you everything you need to design not only the dome, but its covering as well! Here you will learn how to use Dome Designer to design a covering that will fit your dome snugly. You will also want to install windows and doors. This section tells you how.

All in all, The Builder's Manual provided with Dome Designer makes the Dome Designer package much more than just a computer program. It is a complete package that takes you from concept to a finished dome that you can be proud of!