Tuesday 20 March 2012

Clear Dome

Following on from my previous post on making a Bubble Dome. I have since been shopping and got mostly everything I need to start making the fabric dome. I already had some clear polythene and  tent tubes and bought some large bubbled bubble wrap, eyelets and some clear PVC.  I've  also decided to experiment using clear PVC fabric to see which works best. I dug out an old umbrella and took a photo. I can imagine a dome clear tent looking something similar to this. I will experiment with clear PVC first and then use bubblewrap to see which works best aesthetically.  Fingers crossed one of these materials will work fine for the top.

Umbrella

So far for the base I have tried using thickish polythene and experimented putting eyelets through this. I found attaching the eyelets directly into the polythene wouldn't hold, but if adding a layer of fabric while joining, this would work fine. The fabric could also be removed easy afterwards, leaving just the eyelet through the polythene. While this worked well and seemed quite strong, I still felt concerned that this wouldn't be strong enough. I decided to buy a tarpaulin ground sheet that I will have to cut to size and put new eyelets in to match the size of the poles for the base.  I will then experiment sewing pre-pierced large bubbled bubblewrap over the tarpaulin sheet for the base to see how this looks and feels.


2 comments:

  1. Kathleen Desert Gardens21 March 2012 at 23:22

    Great idea!! Love this clear dome over plants. Helps to live in UK where everything grows!!
    Nice idea, may try it here in the southwest. Not tall enough for corn though (:

    ReplyDelete
  2. Cheers for your lovely comments. This is actually a dome that I'm thinking of making for an art project. If you did want to grow Sweet Corn, it could be possible to grow in the middle of the dome in troughs. You really need to experiment with tent poles and make the ground sheet smaller until you reach the required height, which could be fun :-)

    ReplyDelete