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Posts Made By: Jeff Young

September 12, 2005 02:21 PM Forum: Home Observatories

Cylindrical observatory construction

Posted By Jeff Young
The outside of the building is composed of a 10' diameter timber studded wall. The current plan calls for plywood, tar paper, expanded metal, and sand & cement plaster (aka stucco, for those in the States).

Since the building is 10' tall, there will be horizontal joints in the plywood as well as vertical. I've found that 1/4" plywood is about the thickest that will bend easily around the radius. (3/8" will bend around it, but it seems fairly highly stressed when doing so.)

So... current plan is two layers of 1/4" with staggered joints.

-- Does this sound reasonable?

-- Or am I asking for more trouble (with condensation between the two layers of plywood)?

-- Lastly, glued together? ...or just layered and screwed (w/ exterior grade screws)?

Thanks,
-- Jeff.

September 14, 2005 09:53 PM Forum: Home Observatories

Cylindrical observatory construction

Posted By Jeff Young
I built a platform out in the old kitchen (the floor's very uneven) so we could do some test assemblies. It proved very handy in laying out all the floor joists on top of one of the plywood rings as we went, measuring, cutting, mortising, tenoning, and quarter-housing.

Hobbies are great. Where else can you go this far over the top and still enjoy it? 8)

September 15, 2005 05:10 PM Forum: Home Observatories

MY PROJECT... STAY TUNED, more to come

Posted By Jeff Young
Nice spot you've got there, Ivan.

Is that a lake or the intercoastal waterway in the background? Looks very nice....

-- Jeff.

September 20, 2005 07:12 PM Forum: Home Observatories

Cylindrical observatory construction

Posted By Jeff Young
The floor joists will be supported on noggings housed 1/4" into the vertical studs of the perimeter wall. Here are a bunch of studs after being notched with a router.

September 21, 2005 01:53 PM Forum: Home Observatories

Cylindrical observatory construction

Posted By Jeff Young
Here are a couple of shots of just enough studs in to hold up the top ring, so we can see how it all goes together.

September 22, 2005 08:08 PM Forum: Telescope Making

Ever hear of white rouge?

Posted By Jeff Young
Tim --

White rouge is coarser than red rouge.

Some manufacturers use cerium oxide to make red rouge, others use iron oxide. In general, there's a great degree of variability in all these names.

-- Jeff.

September 23, 2005 10:14 PM Forum: Home Observatories

Cylindrical observatory construction

Posted By Jeff Young
Here we've planed and thicknessed a couple of 2x7s for stringers, and routed out housings for the stair treads. The stair treads are planed and thicknessed 2x9s, with a curve molded on the front using a spindle molder.

This picture shows a tread getting ready to have its two front corners rounded down with a rasp.

September 24, 2005 11:08 PM Forum: Home Observatories

Cylindrical observatory construction

Posted By Jeff Young
We screwed in a couple of layers of 1/4" plywood above the door so that we could scribe in the back (curved) line of the door vestibule roof. It's 2 layers of 3/8" plywood (glued and screwed) over a shaped header.

September 27, 2005 10:32 PM Forum: Home Observatories

Cylindrical observatory construction

Posted By Jeff Young
I think I've just about got everything done that I can inside. Given that my dome doesn't ship for another 3 weeks (and it rains a lot this time of year here), we took everything down and stacked it up for now.

Observatory Kit Part A:

October 1, 2005 11:42 AM Forum: Home Observatories

Cylindrical observatory construction

Posted By Jeff Young
I went down and picked up the metal section of the pier yesterday. Looks for all the world like an overgrown bobbin. Cost was €395; weight is about 175 lbs.

The line drawings I faxed to the machine shop are on the previous thread ( http://www.astromart.com/forums/viewpost.asp?forum_post_id=360130) if anyone is interested.

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