Another big day! The truck from Spitz is here with our dome. When I saw this huge truck I expected to see large sections of our thirty-foot dome specially suspended inside. Instead there was this rather small-looking pile of boxes. Once unpacked, however, there was quite an array of support members, tools, and other hardware to put it all together. The sections of the dome itself are still sealed in the boxes seen in the picture at the upper right. These must stay very clean until final installaton.



The plans are checked against the planetarium itself. Today was the first time the people from Spitz have seen the real thing. Then they began moving parts into the star theatre.

Inside the star theatre it is very dark. I discovered that the painters had covered the entire inside of the planetarium roof with black paint. Power has been run to a few lights above the catwalk. Temporary lights are put in place. Even so, it was quite a challenge to get any pictures at all, even with fairly extreme digital "pushing" of my electronic images. Use of flash would have been a bad idea, since everyone's eyes were dark-adapted.



A special powered lift was in place so the technicians could attach the support rods to the special brackets in the roof. The entire dome is suspended from these rods. No part of it actually touches any part of the building itself.

The installation of the dome support structure will take about four days. Stay tuned for more images.

OK, here we go. Installation of the dome itself. On the right Jon Wheless installs a blower that pumps filtered air into the star theatre. Above we see one of the panels being prepped for installation.
Special gloves are worn while handling the panels to keep any smudges off the surfaces. A black felt tape is applied to the edges that will provide a cushion between panels when they are installed. Once this panel is clamped to the dome support, small holes will be drilled along the edges at four-inch intervals that will hold the fasteners shown on the right. Installation of the dome will require the insertion of 6000 of these fasteners.

As usual, it is very dark inside the star theatre as the first panel is installed. I moved around until I got a light bulb behind the first panel. Twenty-four percent of the dome is made up of holes; air and light can come right through it. We can even project images through the walls of the dome. Now we know why all that black paint went into the walls and ceiling behind it.



The panels are brought in and held in place with clamps. Holes are drilled every four inches along the edges of each frame. Large temporary fasteners are placed in the holes to keep everything from shifting while the final holes are completed. The little clear plastic fasteners are pushed into place by hand, the plastic expansion rods are inserted, and the cushioned handle of a screwdriver is used to tap the rod home, expanding the inside of the fastener.

Those of us watching the process noticed that a rather large black border now appeared between the panels. How do we get rid of that? White tape? Tommy joked that we would have to paint this out. He then proceeded to show how it was done. With the panels firmly fastened, he slit the tape next to the panel edge, then stripped away the offending black border. Voila, a seamless interface! The foot or so of black tape remaining shows the area where plastic fasteners are not yet installed. These won't go in until the adjacent panel is put into place; both panels will then be fastened down and the last of the black tape removed.



But wait. We are not done yet. Since there might be little back flecks from the tape and the drilling, the panel is wiped down. Then taking a little brush, each little fastener is painted with flat white paint. There appears to be about 20 fasteners on each edge, so about 100 or so have been used thus far. Only 5900 to go!

Inside the dome they are very nearly finished. It's Michaelangelo time, with lots of looking up to an almost horizontal surface. By the time I got through checking on some of the outside work, I found they had completed everything but the final five panels (plus a cap) on the very top. The entire dome should be completed by tomorrow.

I asked Mark Riordan from Westech how much wire has been put into this building to date. He's still thinking about that one, and we have only installed the wire for electrical power. All the data cables have yet to be pulled. The Planetarium is more like a Starship than an ordinary building.



Meanwhile, something major is beginning outside. The Dryvit system has arrived. On the left we see Step One: installation of the plastic baseboard. On the right we can see the stacks of "Outsulation," which are sheets of expanded polystyrene foam. We are waiting with great interest to see how they are going to install this final exterior finish. When completed, it will look like carved stone.

Except for a small amount of finishing work, the dome is done. In the false-color digitally-enhanced portion of the picture on the right, we can see the sections of the dome that were added since the pictures of yesterday. When you are seated in the Star Theatre during an actual show, the light will come from the center of the theatre, and all the joins between the sections will become invisible.

A big "Well done!" to Tommy Stafford from Spitz and all the members of the dome crew.



On the outside of the planetarium, the application of the exterior finish has begun. This is known as an EIFS, or Exterior Insulation Finish System, which has been used at Valley Children's Hospital and on our own Alumni House here at CSUF. There are many ways to install such a system (see the Dryvit home page), most of which use adhesives. In our case, however, we have gone with mechanical attachment of the panels to the building.

The white material applied to the bottom of the building is Tyvek Stuccowrap, a trademarked name of the Dupont corporation. This material forms a vapor barrier and has vertical channels embossed in it to drain moisture that might get behind the foam. In the inset on the picture at the right, we see that this material is simply stapled into place.

In the second step, sheets of expanded polystyrene are cut to shape, fitted into the special baseboard and tacked into place with regular wood screws. As can be seen in the inset, we have smoothed-sided foam board applied directly to the Stuccowrap.

Once the foam board has been positioned, special red fasteners are used that are shaped like wide plastic baskets. These are spaced closely enough to keep the board firmly attached to the building. All of these fasteners will be covered with the Dryvit material during the final stages of the finish. Once dry, the Dryvit takes on the appearance of stone, but has the flexibility of a polymeric material.

In a variation from earlier information I had been given, no special flashing is applied around the windows and doors before installation of the EIFS system. I asked about this and was told by one of the workmen that a gap would be left between the foam board and the windows. Then, during the final stage of finish application, special Dryvit material will be forced into the openings to caulk them shut.