Geodetic greenhouse (low cost)

Step 2 The joints

One of the issues I had with my fairly small green house was that for larger domes it is easy to drill the ends of the struts and put a bolt through. But for my much smaller - 3/4 inch square  - struts this wasn't going to work. So I devised a quick assembly method using some plastic plumbing pipe and some elastic bands.

A small hole was drilled vertically through each strut and a nail allowed the fixing of the elastic band. The bands were cut from an old bike inner tube.

Comments

[lotusduck]

That should be sort of sturdy, but rubber does degrade under heat and sun, and that would probably be your first point of failure in the whole construction.

[rickharris]

Rubber does degenerate under UV light BUT - Carbon filled rubber such as a tyre inner tube is intended to last longer, AND as you may note I did in fact change the design to include a more permanent method of joining using ply panels.

[hgilman]

i built one 2 years ago with thin bamboo for the sticks and for this part i bought a 6 dollar hose. then i just cut the whole hose into 5 inch sections. for the 6 pointed stars i took 3, 5 inch sections and drilled a hole through them and put a bolt through the 3 holes. then i screwed each point to one bamboo. for the 5 pointed stars i just connected 2, 5 inch sections and one 3 inch section with a bolt and nut

[rickharris]

Yep I did that as well as a trial to get some idea of how big it should be. I almost used it but thought it wasn't going to be strong enough to stand up to wind.

Good idea though.