With me exhausting the corrugated sheet metal panel stash I had among my scrap, I turned my attention to the roof. As mentioned before, I had the metal tube frames from two portable garages whose plastic skins had long since rotted away. It is these pieces of metal that I planned on using to make the roof for the kennel greenhouse since the pieces have the angles and junctions that allow for a slanted roof that can be pieced together to make a complete frame. Also the fittings that were used to hold the individual tubes together would also help in mating the frame to the chain link fence panels that make up the dog kennel. Now there was a small problem that I ran into when using the complete roof frame sections that span from one side of the old portable garage to the other. The garage was quoted as being a 10' x 20' structure but one thing that needed to be taken into account was the fact that the sides of the garage frame actually taper inward as the frame goes up, so at the top where the roof frame pieces are, its not truly 10' wide, its more like 8' - 9' wide. Because of this, I had to remove the tubes that reach out and go to the 100 degree bend pieces that are attached at the ends and replace them with longer tubes that came from different sections of the old garage. Of course these pieces are much longer than they needed to be so I would have to take the pieces for one of the roof sections and do some measuring to get the lengths for the new tubes. I installed the longer tubes in the roof peak junction and put the fittings on the top of the kennel wall frame. From there I installed the 100 degree bend pieces into the fittings on either side of the kennel then brought the longer roof frame up, lining the roof peak with the center of the kennel wall panel, which is 5 ft, then eyeballing the positions of the ends of the tubes, I marked where I would have to cut the tubes to get them shortened enough that they would fit into the 100 degree bends on either side of the kennel and have the peak be centered. With the first section setting the bar for how long the new tubes had to be, I removed the roof section then assembled the other roof peak junctions with the longer tubes, lining them up with the first modified section and marking the rest of the longer tubes for cutting. With all of the roof sections modified and ready to install, I was ready to install the other fittings to the top of the kennel walls so I can get the rest of the 100 degree bends installed. Of course to do this I had to drill plenty of holes in the fame panels of the dog kennel so I could install the carriage bolts that were used on the same fittings with the portable garage. After having already done the first pair of fittings during the modification of the roof sections, I did the same on the opposite side of the kennel since I wanted to install the two end sections. The end sections have roof peak junctions that accommodate only three tubes, since the center tube or the tube that makes up the peak or top most part of the roof only reaches out from one side of the end junctions. In some cases I did have to drill new holes since the cut tubes did not have factory drilled holes that corresponded with the design of the garage. Either way, as I made new holes, bolts went in and the structure went together. With the two end sections hung I had to mark points on either side that would allow for almost even spacing between the end frame sections and the two middle sections that were to be installed. Since the dimensions of the kennel are 10' x 10', to have evenly spaced sections I would have to mark points that are a little better than a third of that number, or about 40 inches, a few inches more than 3 ft. After marking these points on the top of both sides, I hung the fittings at those points then put the 100 degree bend pieces in place and finished hanging the roof frame sections at those two spots. With that, the last thing is the center tube run that will connect the four frame sections. To perform this fun part I had to utilize an old drum to stand on so I could reach the peak of the roof since it was well above 6ft high. In order to install the tubes between the frame sections I had to take a tube, install it on one side then bring it up below the next section and mark about where it would reach into the junction of the next section. From there I removed the tube, jumped down to the ground, cut the tube then climbed back up and installed the tube between the two frame sections. From there I drilled holes on both sides of the tube to put the carriage bolts in place to finish the coupling of the two sections. I repeated this procedure with other two tubes that would finish coupling the remaining frame sections. With that the frames of the roof section are all coupled together and the roof frame is complete. Now as stated before, the plan is to get some thick UV resistant plastic that will be used to cover the roof in the winter time to allow the greenhouse to perform its job as a trap of heat so the plants within can grow. The plastic cover will then be removed when the temps start going up since that will cause the temps to rise to dangerous levels during the warmer weather. If the plastic is thick enough I may even be able to make a fitted skin by gluing sections together and adding grommets to allow for securing the roof skin to the kennel frame. Such a thing would make for quick installation since there won't be any fitting of a loose sheet of plastic, it would just have to be lined up right and secured via the grommets.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Archives
May 2023
|