anyone build hex canopy

A

alti

Guest
does anyone know what angle i have to mitre the edges of the wood to form the hex shape. i asked on another message board and one guy said 30 degree another guy said 45 degrees and another said 60 degrees. can anyone clarify this please.
thanks
 
melbournefl

melbournefl

Member
OMG MATH QUESTION RUN HIDE LOL
I'm gonna vote for the 60 degree advice, by my calculations 6 sides x 60 degrees = 360 degrees whereas, if this was an octagon tank it would be 45 degrees 8 sides x 45 degrees = 360 degrees ... oh shoot now I'm confused, a hex tank does have 8 sides right? damn, too many beers this afternoon I guess ... oh well count the sides and divide that number into 360 and that should yield the correct answer LOL
Good luck and make a mental note, Saturday afternoon yard work + budweiser does not equal good math sense!
Later,
Paul
::: edit by the above idiot :::
Just went out and looked at my miter saw and realized that a 60 degree cut isn't an option LOL okay now I'm really confused because I think a 30 degree miter will yield the same result geeze I'll check back later when I'm thinking straight sorry
 
A

alti

Guest
lol melbourne,
i was hoping to at least narrow down the list of angles, but i guess it was not meant to be.
cheers
 
G

glazer

Guest
Um, it would be a 30 degree angle on each piece. You are making a circle, six sides divided into 360 degrees equals 60 degrees... you will have six of these angles, two pieces making the 60 so divide by two... each board needs to have a 30 degree angle. I hope that made sense.
If it was a square or rectangle... four sides, divide into 360 and you get 90... each joint has to make a 90 so half that would be 45.
I added that little paragraph as almost everyone is familiar with the ol' 45 degree cut... see the correlation?
 
melbournefl

melbournefl

Member
Yeah that's what I meant LOL thanks Glazer, I knew that 360 degrees was our goal, just a case of trying to figure out how many sides ;) 30 degrees on each end of the piece yields that silly 60 degrees I was looking for!
Good luck on the hood!
Later,
Paul
 
rsd

rsd

Member
If your not too savy on cutting angles or doing wood work I'd recommend th 60. Then just but the peices together. You will see the end grain of every other peice of wood but a mitered angle is often the hardest to work with if you are unpracticed...
Or use scrap wood and build a few "small versions" of your hood. Maybe a hex hood with 8" sides. That way you waste less wood gaining experience. Also you might find that your measurements might be different than you thought.
A square tank 1 foot by 1 foot (outside walls) means the INSIDE measurement of your hood is 1 foot and 1/16 inch to fit... while the outside measuremnt of your hood is 1foot 1 5/8 inch.
Make sure you know what you are measuring for before you cut. Goes with my old addage: "Measure 2 to 3 times and cut once.... find out you still screwed it up, blame it on crappy tools, and cut again using 180% of the materials required and 300% the budget."
Good luck though.
 
A

alti

Guest
thanks rsd,
i have built a canopy for my 90 gal and a wall unit for my 30 gal. they were a lot more work than this little canopy, but this would be my first time cutting angles. i thought about it and reconsidered my design of the hood. my new design only requires angled cuts on 6 pieces of 1x1/2. this way there is not much material i can mess up.
thanks again
rob
 
joez

joez

Member
(X - 2)*180=Y
Y/X = angle per corner
X being how many corners. Hex you said, so put 6.
Y is the total of all angles added.
720/6 = 120 outside angle.
To sum up, 60 inside angle
 
jinky3dper

jinky3dper

Member
yeah, i'll be building a hex tank canopy as well...
360 divided by 6 sides = 60deg per joint
2 pieces make the joint, so divide by 2 = 30deg.
viola! :)
 
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