Building St. John's Church, Dome Update

We're continuing construction on our Mission's Church building. As Javier and I were framing the ceiling last week I decided we had enough height to build a dome inside the ceiling structure. Fr. Damian was at the OCA Western Diocesan Mission's Conference for the week so I was just going to do it as a suprise, but decided I probably should call Fr. Damian and discuss it with him. When I called he was in a session with the Bishop about the necessity of beauty in our ethos of worship and had talked to an architect about our building design... and they were discussing changing the structure to reflect a more traditional Church. So, I got the blessing to proceed.

The disk is the top of the dome structure at the center of the nave.


This is the bottom rim of the 10 foot diameter dome. We cut and build it on the floor then hang it from the rafters.
This is the bottom of the dome being installed and levelled. The bottom rim of the dome will be the ceiling height of the building at fourteen feet.

This is the roughed in structure. We will design and cut about forty arched "ribs" that will be the actual shape of the dome.


This is us (well...me) installing the "ribs" for the shape of the dome. These will hold the wire lath for the plaster.
Javier is framing loose ends in the dome area for backing and support for the dome and the ribs.

This is Father Damian, our priest, who has quite a bit of experience in construction. He spent most of the afternoon cutting the ribs while Javier and I framed and installed them. We got about one fourth of the ribs done today.