We recently got a letter from architect James Horecka, parts of which are excerpted below:
I figured I’d recreate a geodesic pumpkin that I had carved-up back around 1990, shortly after I visited the Buckminster Fuller Institute (back when it was still in Los Angeles).
…on Monday morning, I came up with the idea of making a Geodesic Jack out of EMT, as I had some laying around. Over three evenings of a few hours each, I knocked it out.
The basics:
- 1v Icosahedron (obviously).
- Struts: 8″ long pieces of ½″ EMT. Two 10′ sticks yielded the 30 struts required.
- End tabs flattened in my 20-ton hydraulic press. They are long because I was originally going to just stack the joints, ‘Burner’ style.
- At the last minute, I decided to use hubs instead of stacking (cleaner look, less hassle). The steel discs are 2¾″ diameter cover plates for repairing holes where operating hardware has been removed.
- I drafted the Hub templates CADD; glued to the metal, center-punched, drilled, and deburred.
- Fasteners are ¼-20 × ½″ stove bolts & nuts.
- Two-tone paint: Honey inside (flesh), Amber outside (skin), plus Black.
Anyway: Creating this from scratch over just a few evenings was good fun.
I’ll probably go back and make another dozen hub plates, for the inside face of each node. With those and the bolts & nuts painted black, the assembly will look a little sharper still. Though now that Halloween is over, I’ve no idea what to do with this thing until next year! Cat House?
P.S.: I continue to enjoy reading your books. Cover-to-cover, one after another.
Sincerely,
James Horecka, AIA
Staff Architect, A&FE
Disneyland Resort, Anaheim
