I think I know what your thinking and it's plan full of treachery. I once helped a student from the Art institute out here in California make up one in acrylic.
We used my table saw with lots of on the fly fixtures. It was very difficult with lots of flying exploding small pieces.
It one of those things that's a great idea but difficult to accomplish.
If your assignment is going to be wood consider a large block of basswood and grind away the wood reveling your design.

Good Luck

 

I think I know what your thinking and it's plan full of treachery. I once helped a student from the Art institute out here in California make up one in acrylic.
We used my table saw with lots of on the fly fixtures. It was very difficult with lots of flying exploding small pieces.
It one of those things that's a great idea but difficult to accomplish.
If your assignment is going to be wood consider a large block of basswood and grind away the wood reveling your design.

Good Luck

- Aj2

+1 but when there is a will there be a way,good luck.

 

We probably need more information. What is the dome going to be used for and how big is this dome going to be? In general a table saw will usually be more precise than a miter saw.

For small domes and spheres, you might look at Steve Garrison's videos on making polyhedrons. I don't think he uses triangles in any of them but he shows some very precise techniques he uses for cutting the pieces on the table saw.

 

Cut triangles on tablesaw. I am sure you can cut squares and then set up a jig to cut the angles all the same.

 

We probably need more information. What is the dome going to be used for and how big is this dome going to be? In general a table saw will usually be more precise than a miter saw.

For small domes and spheres, you might look at Steve Garrison s videos on making polyhedrons. I don t think he uses triangles in any of them but he shows some very precise techniques he uses for cutting the pieces on the table saw.

- Lazyman

The general idea is to create my own "hidden globe bar". So I would need to create two 2v geodesic domes that would (in theory) fit together smoothly, and then create the arm and hinge that will open the top dome and attach it all to a couple of slabs. I haven't gone too in-depth with the whole thing because I want to make sure the domes are possible first. The diameter would look to be roughly 2 feet. I need it large enough so I can create a basket in the bottom dome to securely hold glassware and a bottle or two of some top-shelf whiskey. I will definitely watch a couple of his videos and hopefully I can find some techniques and practice them.

 

man you lost me a long time ago,but then the top shelf whiskey revived me-lol. as lazyman said we need more of whatever?oh hell it's late saturday night ,have some whiskey and who cares-lol.

 

I suggest a table saw and a nice crosscut sled or at least an incra miter gauge. I don't even want to know how you would plan on beveling long pieces on a chop saw lol. Would be way better to use a track saw or even on a budget a circular saw and jig/sled made from plywood and 2×4s.

 

A thought is to construct a shooting board jig for each angle needed to dial in the fitment

 

This sounds like a dedicated sled cakewalk.

This is the jig I made for the bandsaw.

https://www.lumberjocks.com/projects/257218

 

Mark you cut line, set this to that line….hand saw away….no noise, not much dust, lot safer than a spinning blade…no electrons were harmed…

Compound bevel? place a ramp under the stock.

 

I'm a hand tool guy that makes kumiko with just a chisel but there is no way I would do this with hand tools LOL. I think some people are underestimating the complexity and time sink-iness of all the cuts involved.

 

Then Steve Garrison's videos that I linked to above are going give you the best tutorial that I have seen. It is a little pricey but he also sells an ebook for specific details as well as other information at his Spirals by Steve website. I have a couple of his ebooks and he is good about answering questions through email if you have any. You can also see the router jig he uses to make them round after gluing them up.

 

Radial arm saw, as long as the parts will fit within its capacity. A RAS allows clamping the work in ways the table saw doesn't, imo, and makes experimentation with angles easier because for something like triangles it won't require much in the way of jigs I think.

That said, a geodesic dome form could be pretty difficult to get perfect, but you can fudge the bevels so the joints are tighter on the outside. Today those digital angle finders that stick to a saw plate with magnets can make setting exacting bevels a lot easier than it used to be.

 

These are some awesome ideas, I will definitely look into a lot of these and see what will work best for me! So far I'm thinking table saw and possibly the shooting board jig to get them really dialed.

 

Table saw but you'll have to construct a sled to handle the small parts safely, I would use plywood for this.

 

http://woodarchivist.com/3837-making-wooden-soccer-ball/

Seams wouldn't be too difficult to modify for your needs.