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Thread: Help Designing a Sukkah

  1. #1
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    Help Designing a Sukkah

    Good morning,

    The Jewish holiday of Sukkot is coming up in a few weeks and I need to build a sukkah. The history and details are available at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sukkah. I will spare you the long story...

    The sukkah needs to be a temporary structure with 8" walls and an open ceiling. Think of it as a booth. The walls need to be solid enough that a candle in the middle of the sukkah cannot be blown out by the wind.

    I plan on building an 8'x12' sukkah out of 4'x8' panels that can be bolted together. Here is the basic blueprints


    The panels will be made of 2"x2"x8' or 2"x3"x8' dimensional lumber. The frame will have the lower cross brace 4" from the ground to compensate for uneven terrain. a middle cross brace will be at 4'4" to box in the inside panneling. The outside will be covered with a 4'x8' sheet of lattice. The inside has a 4'x4' piece of beaded plywood on the lower half of the wall. The upper half of the inner wall will be covered with canvas that can be tied up to allow for a breeze or sunlight.



    Here are the areas that I can use some help with...

    1. There will be 3 panels on the long walls and 2 on the short wall. What is the best way to bolt them together? I was thinking of another 2x2 or 2x3 carriage bolted to the top and bottom of the panels to keep them in-line.

    2. I need a way to brace them on the bottom so they do not tip over. Any thoughts?

    3. Is there any thoughts on how to build this thing cheaper, lighter, and simpler??

    Thanks!!!

    Dan
    A flute without holes, is not a flute. A donut without a hole, is a Danish.

  2. #2
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    Hi Dan-

    Before I finked out and got a prefab (termites got the wood one), I used to drill through the corners and just use some 1/2" threaded rod, fender washers and nuts to hold the corners together (and also the side sections). My old woodie was 12' x 8' so it was a total of 10 sections, each was 4' wide by 8' high. I also used some cross members on the top to hold the s'chach and lights.

    I used 2 x3 lumber, so it was pretty substantial and resisted the wind very well.

    Termites, over the years, made the construction less substantial. Termites don't seem to affect the metal pipes of the prefab.

    Shana Tova.

  3. #3
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    Interesting problem. Couple of thoughts....

    Carriage bolts are a bad thing, IMHO. There's no way to grab the heads to tighten them up. If they start spinning in the hole, you're hosed. Instead, use real bolts with heads. Or even better, use threaded inserts.

    To make the sukkah more easily erected, look at KD hardware. Threaded inserts are one example. To screw into them, you can use knobs with threaded shafts. http://www.leevalley.com/wood/page.a...,43455&p=52800 Between the two, you get tool-free erection. Another useful type of hardware is the draw catch. The tongue on the catch aligns two pieces, and the lever snaps over-center to hold them together. http://www.leevalley.com/hardware/pa...97&cat=3,41427 is Lee Valley's offerings, but there are larger steel ones out there.

    As for bracing the bottoms of the walls, I don't see a need. If you get the wall panels securely fastened together, the end walls will hold the side walls up, and the side walls will hold the end walls up. Okay, you probably need a "header" above the doorway.

  4. #4
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    Another idea...

    Must the sukkah be built from wood? The most portable shelter I know about is a tent. Okay, tents have a roof, which isn't allowed, but the point is that fabric stops the wind. In this concept, your sukkah would have poles at the corners. It would have cables connecting the tops of the poles, and continuing down to tent pegs driven into the ground outside the sukkah. Fabric would drape from the cables. Maybe there's another cable along the ground which prevents the fabric from blowing in the breeze. Maybe there's a couple of intermediate poles in the walls to help support the cable and fabric.

    The whole thing folds or rolls up and stores much more easily than those 4x8 panels. It adapts easily to uneven ground. The only tool needed for assembly is a hammer to drive the tent pegs.

    If you need to erect it where you can't drive pegs, you can tie the guy cables off to existing stuff -- trees, cars, even buildings.
    Last edited by Jamie Buxton; 09-25-2008 at 11:25 AM.

  5. #5
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    Yes, that can be done. In fact, there are companies that sell canvas or other fabric sukkahs... but where is the woodworking fun in that?? Not much of a chance to play with my toyls.

    Kinda makes you wonder how Mark Singer would design a sukkah... it would probably be post and beam from some exotic wood we have never heard of...

    Dan
    A flute without holes, is not a flute. A donut without a hole, is a Danish.

  6. #6
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    Quote Originally Posted by Dan Mages View Post
    Yes, that can be done. In fact, there are companies that sell canvas or other fabric sukkahs... but where is the woodworking fun in that?? Not much of a chance to play with my toyls.

    Kinda makes you wonder how Mark Singer would design a sukkah... it would probably be post and beam from some exotic wood we have never heard of...

    Dan
    Ah -- you don't want to just build a sukkah, you want to build a woodworker's sukkah. I like the post and beam idea. Look into Japanese temple construction. Those guys make big permanent structures from fairly short pieces of wood, and use the most wonderful joinery to hold it together. You want a temporary building, so you'd need to modify the Japanese approach. The posts and beams would need to be much smaller and lighter. The joints would need to assemble with wedges, which could be knocked out for disassembly. You might still want to use fabric to fill the spaces between the structural members. The fabric may not be woodworking, but plywood isn't all that fascinating either.

  7. #7
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    I think that Jamie makes some good suggestions and combining some beautiful knock-down joinery with the seasonal decorations typical for the Sukkot celebration would look awesome.
    --

    The most expensive tool is the one you buy "cheaply" and often...

  8. #8
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    hmmm... maybe I wil see if anyone wants to buy this sukkah so I can make a knock down timberframe job next year. Maybe make it out of 4x4 cedar posts?
    A flute without holes, is not a flute. A donut without a hole, is a Danish.

  9. #9
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    Quote Originally Posted by Dan Mages View Post
    4x4?
    Your original post said this sukkah is supposed to be temporary. Does that mean you plan to set it up once a year, take it down a couple weeks later, store it for eleven months, and repeat? If so, a big part of the design should address how it will disassemble, and where you will store it. 4x4 posts wouldn't be how I'd tackle those issues. I'd use 2x2 vertical poles at the corners, and every 5 feet or so along the sides. I'd make "bottom plates" and "top plates" from 3x1s. There would be two layers of the plates top and bottom, because the pieces of plate would be only ten feet long or so. The joints in the two layers of plates would be bricklaid -- that is, the joints in the upper layer would be in the middle of the runs in the lower layer. There would be mortises through the plates, and tenons on the ends of the poles. The tenons would nail the two layers of plates together into one long continuous beam. When you take the building apart for storage, all your lumber is 2x2 or 1x3, and it is no more than ten feet long. That's pretty portable and storable.

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