Laying out for a hexagon shaped floor
PaulGC
| Posted in Construction Techniques on
I have to build a 12′ high lighthouse for someone in the shape of a hexagon. I know how to start off the floor but I wondered if Fine Homebuilding ever did a story within the last few years on laying out the floor for gazeboes as it has the same floor as the lighthouse I’m gonna build. Basically all I want to find in the magazine is some techniques for laying out the floor fairly easy (ex. getting everything at 45’s to one another).
Thanks kindly folks
Paul
Replies
With a hexagon, I think the easiest way would be to make a circle the diameter you want, then take the radius and mark where it crosses the circle as you step it around the perimeter. That will give you your hexagon. Don't recall seeing anything in FHB about it though.
I'd do a double base plate and stagger the seams.
be for what it's worth
half of good living is staying out of bad situations
I had to do this about a month ago for a gazebo. I knew the concrete guys couldn't do it and end up with a perfectly shaped hexagon so I did it for them. Thing was, I thought I was just gonna do it real quick on the fly, on site. I ended up having to go home that night and think about it some on a piece of paper. I also had to consult a trigometric chart that is in a roof framing book I have.
BTW - you said: >> (ex. getting everything at 45's to one another). << If I understand you correctly, hate to say it, but there are no 45s in it. It is all 30 and 60 degree angles.
See attached pic.
Edited 5/29/2006 8:45 pm ET by Matt
Off the wall is I, I bet you mean an Octagon...Eight sides?
Take one half the diagonal of the sq and walkit off from each corner..that'll give ya a reasonable start.
Spheramid Enterprises Architectural Woodworks
There is no cure for stupid. R. White.
I was gonna say the same thing Sphere.
I didn't think there were any 45 degree angles in a hexagon.
blue
Tap about a 6 or 8 penny nail into the center of your hexagon. If you are starting with dirt, put in a stake with a nail on top. Hook your tape over the nail and extend out to where you want the points on the hexagon to reach. Make a circle with your pencil held on to the tape at your desired distance, say 6', for example. Then pick a spot on the circle where you want one of the hexagon points to be. Place a nail here and hook over. Extend to the same measurement (6') and mark or nail where the 6' point crosses the circle in two places. This gives you three adjacent points. From here, you can do use one of two methods.
One: run a string from each point through the center of the circle to the opposite side and mark.
or
Two: just keep moving your tape to the most recent point on the circle and measure the same distance to find the next point. If your points are not exactly equal, you may be a little sloppy in your measurements. Done right, this method will give you a perfect hexagon.
Paul,
A Hexagon is a six sided polygon and runs at 60° and 30° so your miters will be at 30°.
Here's a drawing with a Hexagon.
Well guys I'm back with an update on that hexagon shaped lighthouse I was gonna' build. I have the walls all finished except for a dozen courses of clapboard. Tomorrow I'll start on the roof part. What I decided to do starting off with the cabse was make up a trapezoid truss with the top member having 10" overhangs. Then I marked the center of this top member to use as a common point to tie in the other 4 members.
The problem I had from the start was that someone else poured the concrete base and it turned out uneven. I measured across the 3 sets of corners and they were all different. Two were about 5/8" different while the other was over 1". Too make things worse was that the concrete was way off level.
I figured well the concrete base is off so the structure is gonna' be "unevenly shaped" at its base. Then I gave it some thought as to how to do it "properly". Someone told me to make my vertical corner pieces the same but I said no as that'll make the whole structure uneven right up too the top. I laid out a drawing on a plywood floor of a side view of the first truss. Then using the same center point of the bottom member I laid out lines on the floor for the other two sets of corners. This gave me a pretty much exact length and angle size of all corner pieces.
I decided to make the lighthouse pretty close to even across all corners on top. Basically I used the center point on the truss, which will be the same center point across all corners. The lighthouse went up pretty good I must say. It now has a perfectly shaped hexagon top. It has an irregular bottom that tapers up to a regular shaped top.
I wish I had some pictures to include here.
Paul
I don't understand why you didn't make the bottom right. It doesn't matter if the concrete is off, your work should be right. There's no law saying that you have to follow a crooked foundation that you didn't make. It's the masons problem not yours. If the homeowner checks your works and says "how come it's crooked" are you going to tell them that it was the masons fault?You have to make your own work straight even if it's in or out on the foundation. I've never heard of anyone making the bottom irregular and the top perfect before.Joe Carola
Well Joe, my reason for doing so was that I didn't want one or two corners to stick out beyond the concrete form. Think about it, I have an 8' wide or so concrete form that is off level around 1-1/2" which means that if I cut all 6 corner framing members the same length the top will be off level. The only way to make the top level is too cut the members slightly different.
I laid a full size drawing out on a plywood floor first before I started, with a common center point on the top & bottom.
I do agree with what you said and I actually thought about doing it until I began to see that a couple of corners were gonna stick out past the concrete form, well over an inch. Personally I'd rather have the clapboard walls in line with the concrete form.
Paul