pergala in Ipe and fiberglass

[Chris Hughes]

This was a cool project from this summer.  I ran into my customer at a local big box home center.  They were looking at a much smaller metal pergala with a retractable canopy.

I used Ipe' because it could get the spans I needed.  This unit is roughly 18 1/2' by 13 1/2'.  I would have rather built square tapered columns but in order to cut cost I used fiberglass.

The upper portion of the pergala is held together with opposing mortises.  The upper portion has through bolts under the first and last mortises to secure it to the columns which I plugged and inserted to recieve the 3/8x6" bolts.

I built a series of templates to get my shapes and mortises exact.  Using a jigsaw I hooged it out and used a OF2200 to clean things up.  The rotex came in handy, I sanded to 120 as I was using a bonding primer and paint.

 

[Chris Hughes]

I have a few more pictures to post now that I have the retractable canopy installed.  I'll add them tomorrow.

 

[ForumMFG]

Thats really nice chris.  How long did it take you to build that?

 

[GreenGA]

That is gorgeous! 

I gotta keep JR away from that image.  She'll want one, RSN. 

 

[Chris Hughes]

The project took about 50hrs.

I ordered the canopy after the upper section was built.  I had batten pockets sown in on about 20"oc and used 1/2 steel tubes powder coated and cut to length.  I used stainless steel shackles from Hobie sailing to attach the batten rods to stainless guildline made up at a sailboat rig shop.

The canopy has two straps to pull it open and then close.  Pretty low tech.

 

[score0matic]

Very Nice.
Craig

 

[RogerF]

Looks beautiful and works well with the house. Did you have any concerns about racking with the design?