Oh, it's been another long winter. Not as long as some in recent memory have been, thankfully. In fact, the weather in January and February this year have been some of the warmest on record. This did not pass by me unnoticed, so it was with little hesitation that I decided to get busy on finishing work on the dome.
When I left the dome last .. Spring?? Wow. Time just flies .. regardless of the fun level! When I left the dome, it was pretty much as you see in the picture below. I'd recently devised a way to mount the Solexx panels by 'sistering' custom cut cedar boards onto the existing pipe. But, it was at that time that we got the news that it was time to put the new steel roof on and gut the kitchen, both of which superceded all other project.
But, with the awesome unseasonable weather, I was able to start on finishing the dome exterior. I'm not certain of the exact count, but at this point I think I had about 80 cedar boards yet to fashion and probably close to 60 triangles to cut. My process was getting more efficient at this point and I think i was able to produce about 16 of these boards in 4 hours. 16 triangles took about 1.5 hours to cut. Add about 3 to 4 hours to mount the parts. This worked out to .. oh .. somewhere like 30 or 40 hours to finish the job of covering the dome.
Those days we're almost surreal. We'd just gotten a fairly heavy snow storm which left us with a good 6 or 7 inches of snow, but the sun was out and warm! It was simply irresistible to not be outside working, so with my 'Droid and a small set of speakers and a few layers to keep warm I would work outside through the weekends and through the weekdays in the evenings. I shot this little video to try and capture some of the feel.
Now, only a few weeks later, the days are reaching into the 70's and temperatures are getting into the 90's and 100's in the dome - and it's only MARCH! Windows and basic ventilation are next on the docket.
