| This is my new pagoda I built this weekend, I had previously made one
out of a plastic
yard light, but it did not vent good enough. I have seen the latest ones made out of metal yard lights, but I wondered how hot they would get, and I started looking at commercial ones from Davis for ideas. I have heard of others making them out of bowls, and I had looked for bowls before but could never find the right type, or white ones, or ones that weren't really expensive. I had to go to northern Michigan this weekend to pick up my boat from being winterized near our cottage and as I was driving I saw a "Dollar Daze", so I stopped and I felt like I hit the jackpot. They had 2 different styles of white plastic bowls in 4 packs. I decided I would use 8 bowls for my pagoda, so being Dollar Daze, I got out the door for $2. Now I just needed some parts to assemble it. I bought 3 2' threaded rods @ home depot to hold the bowls together, and I wanted bulk nylon spacers that I could cut to the length I desired. The nylon spacers were almost $.50 each, so I started to think about what else I could use. I went a couple of aisles over and found some plastic 3/8" hose/tubing @ $.17 a foot, so I bought 5 feet. I also bought 2 metal plates about 1.5 inches long and 6 inches long to mount the pagoda with. You can see the pictures at the right, in the order of assembly. I would recommend using a template to drill the holes for the rods. It is hard to get the 8 holes for each rod to line up if drilling by hand. I just drilled through the first 4 bowls all at once, but it was even hard getting the rods through just 4 bowls, so I then made the template and marked and drilled each bowl, this made things much smoother. The top 3 bowls are solid, and the bottom 5 have a hole cut it them with a hole saw to allow ventilation. Here is the parts list for the pagoda. The whole thing cost me $9.07!! |
 Type of Bowls |
 Bowls |
 Template so holes line up |
 Using template |
 Mark holes so you can put rod through same hole on all 8 bowls |
 I could not find bulk nylon spacers to cut myself, and it was almost $.50 each for already cut ones, so I found some 3/8" plastic tubing and cut it for spacers. I got 5 feet for $.87 !! |
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 Assembled Pagoda |
 Bottom of Pagoda with bracket to hold humidity sensor. |
 Once I looked at the completed pagoda, I thought the lip on the bowls would prevent airflow, so I took it apart and cut the lips off. |
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 Pagoda with bowl lips cut off. |
 Finished Pagoda. |
 Up on the roof. |
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 More roof pics |
 More roof pics |
 More roof pics |
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 More roof pics |