Small Pavilion Tent: Step 4 -Making a Hub

Next up, lets look a the hub. The Hub is very important to the structure of the pavilion., and rivals the center pole in importance, as it hold the hole thing together. The walls and roof of the tent are held out by spokes, that are held in place by the hub. Think of a giant wagon weal. The hub rests about 6ft up the center pole, and is what all the spokes are held in place by.

Once again I am extensively using Max & Mickel's Easy, No-bake Pavilion tutorial for my tent. Read it to gain afull understanding of what is going on, and more details I may miss.

Wile Max & Mickel's Easy, No-bake Pavilion suggests against using this method it was the only one I was able to do. I found 4 precut round paces of plywood (or is it chip wood?) at Home Depot for about $5 each, I used carpenters glue (a lot of it to) and glued them together, I was planing on using 3 clamps, but could only find one... So one side is glued better than the other. I was happy with the result, I don't think these will be coming apart... ever. However, I do plan on putting in about 4 bolts (with washers) just to make sure.

Now, the the dowels I am using for spokes are 1 5/16" and the center pole is  1 1/2"

Drill Bits don't come in 1 5/16" sissies however, so I had to settle with 1 1/4" and naturally I got a 1 1/2" bit as well.

Find the middle of the hub (for the center pole) with a math compass (the device on the left), and the angles (for the spokes) with a protractor (the device on the right).

Put on safety gear now! Giant slivers in the eyes is no fun! Also, thicker gloves will help slow the inevitable vibration caused numbing of your hands.

I had to get my mom to hold the Hub wile I drilled, as it wanted to spin.

Drilling the Center pole hole was easy enough, but drilling against the grain of the chip/ply wood is quite a struggle, mess and a work out. My arms were complaining quite a bit afterwards.

I drilled about 2" deep on every hole.

There you have it a hub!