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Thread: Boathouse Cupola

  1. #1
    Join Date
    Feb 2014
    Location
    Lake Gaston, Henrico, NC
    Posts
    8,973

    Boathouse Cupola

    Finished, and installed this just in time for the July 4th crowd at the lake. I still had all the cutters in the routers for an 18th Century sash run, so used some dry, treated Pine to make the sash from. Most have a copper roof, but that turns dark quickly, and is not so showy. I figured a white roof could be seen from way up the lake, so the roof has a couple of layers of fiberglass on it, and Sherwin-Williams Emerald gloss.

    The top hinges to access the solar light. The slope of the cupola roof is exactly double the 18 degree slope of the boathouse. I had put a standing seam roof on the boathouse a few years ago. It's just a few hundred yards from our place.

    The base with the louvers was all that was left of the old one, after a big storm, so I just built the new top to fit that base. The base was still completely solid.

    The owners said it drew a stream of lookers in boats all weekend.

    Sorry, still no quick and easy way, that I know of, to properly orient the pics here.
    IMG_2785.jpgIMG_3269.jpgIMG_3268.jpg

  2. #2
    It’s “in- herontly good”…..unless that bird on the cupola is some kind of duck !

  3. #3
    Join Date
    Feb 2014
    Location
    Lake Gaston, Henrico, NC
    Posts
    8,973
    There are a Lot of Great Blue Herons here, and very few Bald Eagles. That one was not only fitting for the area, but a good size.

  4. #4
    Very nice Tom!
    "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing."

    “If you want to know what a man's like, take a good look at how he treats his inferiors, not his equals.”

  5. #5
    Join Date
    Feb 2014
    Location
    Lake Gaston, Henrico, NC
    Posts
    8,973
    Thanks. People stopped by our house, this weekend, to tell how nice it looks.

    I used this (link below) to save a lot of work building the roof, along with a Wixey cube to set the blade bevel on a table saw. Everything fit perfectly, first try. The whole thing is built from my saved for years drying treated wood. The plywood on the roof is marine Baltic Birch. The "standing seams" on the roof are Heart Cypress. Most of the wood was scraps from other projects. The plywood, and standing seam battens are fiberglassed over.

    https://www.blocklayer.com/pyramid-calculator.aspx

    I just plugged in the length (width) of the bottom I needed, and roof angle I wanted, and it gave me everything else I needed to know.
    Last edited by Tom M King; 07-06-2021 at 7:27 PM.

  6. #6
    I like the idea of lighting the cupola with photovoltaics.

    Will your structural engineering tested by Elsa?
    Last edited by Thomas Wilson; 07-06-2021 at 8:29 PM.

  7. #7
    Join Date
    Feb 2014
    Location
    Lake Gaston, Henrico, NC
    Posts
    8,973
    It's Way overbuilt. The Great Blue Heron may fly off in a real Hurricane. I changed the shaft it's mounted on to a hardened, stainless steel rod, that's anchored strongly into the structure of the roof, but the stock keeper on the shaft has a no. 8 machine screw holding it on the shaft. The stock rod was a soft steel shaft with a tacky bracket to mount to the outside of the roof. Rafter structure is 2-1/4" thick dry treated Pine, and everything is glued, and screwed. It will see a lot of wind, sometime.

    Panes are just 5x5 inches, and double strength glass.

    Just the part that I built, sitting on top of the louvered base, weighs over 100 pounds, and is well tied down.

  8. #8
    Join Date
    Oct 2015
    Location
    SW Florida
    Posts
    139
    Really nice work Tom...it's no wonder people have stopped to share their admirations.
    A wannabe woodworker!

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