Background Information
Despite its unfamiliar first impression, Wholeo Dome is an outgrowth of traditional
medieval craft. Hand-blown antique stained glass was cut to make a design.
Sometimes the glass was etched with acid, painted, stained, and fired in
a kiln to provide detail on each piece. The glass was pieced together with
lead “came” surrounding their edges. A few panels are wrapped
in copper foil in the Tiffany-lamp style. The lead joints and copper-wire
ties are soldered with tin. Then putty is forced under the lead to strengthen
the panel and waterproof it. Sometimes the glass is overlapped or layered.
The semi-rigid panels are attached to a metal framework that holds them in
place. For Wholeo, the framework is a geodesic dome and the glass panels
are tied to it with copper wires. The glass panels themselves are fit together
into a larger shape, a hemisphere, with wide leading between them.
The individual pieces of glass are flat. Because each panel is built on a curved table, the panels conform to the curved surface of the dome.
The picture above shows Wholeo Dome from the North, as it was being installed on an outdoor site in Northern California. The leaded glass panels on the South side are up. The other half of the panels are not yet installed, so you can see the geodesic dome framework that holds Wholeo Dome up.
The dome struts are made of 1/2" diameter aluminum tubes. The aluminum tubes are flattened and drilled at each end, so they can be bolted together at the vertices of a 6-frequency hemisphere.
Questions or Comments?
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link below:
lich...@wholeo.net