An Idea with Legs

[pa_friendly_guy]

I like the design Nutcase. I have a question for you, in keeping with the cheap idea, with some parts replaceable in a few years [ like the tarp covering the roof ] could you increase the head room by putting the entire structure up on straw bales ? Without cobbing them or protecting them in any way they may last as long as the tarp. It would increase your head room, and allow more options. Just a thought, 5"10" is a bit short on head room for me to walk in there with out hitting my head.

[Nutcase]

I see no reason why hay bales wouldn't work quite well, assuming you keep them dry of course and assuming the bales are suitably dense. An even cheaper alternative would be to just use 10' legs. But hay bales could be good, better than something hard like cinder blocks, due to the light and elastic nature of the structure. Final placement of the feet involves just picking up each leg and setting it down where it wants to go, and hay bales would accommodate that, give the feet something to dig into a bit.

Of course the higher you put the arch off the ground, the more susceptible it is to getting picked up or pushed over by the wind.

[Nutcase]

This is an extended version of the six-pack concept that I built for a neighbor. Six transverse panels, 1 1/2 panels on each side. This is a shot taken a few days after a brief but intense windstorm, the one that kited my little goat shelter. The storm broke a lot of trees, leading to a 36-hr power outage. Wind direction was generally transverse to the structure. It was on this elevated concrete pad, unanchored, unballasted and braced only with a few cinder blocks. Interestingly, the only effect on the structure was some minor displacement of feet on the windward side, and the wire slipped off the heel of a few feet. Since then I've come up with a good way to secure a wire at the heel of a free foot.

[Nutcase]

On the left what you are looking at is a fence bracket with the bottom tab bent out to make a nice hook for the wire. So far, I prefer the Simpson Strong Tie version, available around here at Home Depot. The bottle cap wire clamp works well too.

The bent fence brackets can be used in place of stop screws elsewhere too.

[Nutcase]

Oh, with the 3/4" shims, the header is at 74" as measured on my neighbor's structure. Very comfortable for someone my size, yet still convenient for overhead storage.

[Nutcase]

Frankly, I am amazed that what I am calling scissor-lock cattle panel construction isn't already in wide use. Lots of DIY type people are doing things with lots of cattle panels and 2x4s all the time. Even so, I certainly didn't see anything like this when I first decided to make a cattle panel hoop house for a chicken coop and asked Google Sensei for some design suggestions. I saw a lot of interesting things, but not this. So I built something more conventional for the chickens, noticed some things that are there to see for anybody sticking 2x4s through cattle panels, then noticed some more things...It's like picking up a c-note lying on a sidewalk on a city street with footprints all over it. Strange. Some of the follow-up I've done is arguably a bit clever, but the basic idea is just right there. When i brought this up with my wife she said, "well, maybe there's some hidden flaw that makes it not work as well as you think..." Well, yeah, but it actually does work as well as I think.

[Nutcase]

Last but not least, here is a lean-to variation on the theme:



The taper on the legs is such that the tarp slopes away from the wall even at the wall, and the lower legs are very close to vertical. I doubled up the...let's call them headers just for terminological consistency...to even out the forces on the wire.

So that's it so far.

[Nutcase]

No, actually there is one more thing. I used the same concept to build a barrier around our milking stanchion. The smooth arch is certainly more user-friendly than a more conventional structure with hard angles



The two sections of 2x4 hold the panel in a nice, stable arch, and they find use as a shelf. That bungee cord works perfect as a pail hook.

There are probably more things to do with arches like this tied together to make temporary enclosures of one sort or another.

Chickadee, the goat in the stanchion, is a mild and polite, but the white one, Creampuff, isn't. She's not mean, but she can be very domineering and aggressive about food. We know her as the alfalfa female in our little herd.

[TruGrit]

.. good job Nutcase, love the structure .. those panels just keep on giving don't they? .. endless uses.

[Nutcase]

Thanks, Tru. And yes, I am finding many uses for these things, sometimes even as panels for livestock fencing.