Some sort of shelter from the weather is nice to have, especially with wood boats. My Building Book describes building a visqueen covered shed but the problem with it is that if you live in snow country, it can cave in unless you have a hell of a peak. I've spent MANY nights on ladders, flashlight in my teeth, raking snow off roofs that weren't peaked enough. I through with that stuff and would build this sort of building next time.
I’ve seen people make “bow” buildings before and I’ve always liked them. The good side of them is that they will take a real snow load because the snow just slides off. And they appear simple to build too. Ken Wells, who lives in Ohio or Egypt or one of those middle states that has lots of snow, humidity, bugs, republican voters and such, built the building in this photo and wrote the description. It looks like just the thing. And, when you’re through building the boat, I think you could disassemble the building and sell the bows!
“Green house” grade visqueen can be bought at any good garden wholesaler. It comes in 6 mil rolls very wide and long. It stands up to the sun for years. Plastic tarps work too. The blue ones are the cheapest and are junk. Use the gray; they last much longer. And two layers of tarp or plastic makes enough air barrier where it won’t condensate inside! A single layer in weather where it freezes will freeze on the inside, then drip on your head all day. Awful. Anyway, here's Ken's comments and photo.

"Working alone, construction took about 50 hrs. for a 25' x 45' x 20' high building. The frames are 1 x 3 strapping
with 2 x 4 spacers. they sit on a 2' high knee wall which is anchored to the ground with 5' steel fence posts. It's attached to the end of my shop in two places at the roof line. I covered it with two heavy silver plastic tarps joined at the ridge. The ends are covered with clear poly sheet. Total cost, which includes a load of gravel to level the floor was about $1000. or less than a dollar a sq. ft"

You'll need some sort of form to bend the 1-by around. It seems to me when I saw it done they had driven a couple 2-bys in the ground, maybe 4, in the arc they wanted. You clamp the first layer of 1-by to the 2x4s, screw or nail the spacers (2x4 x 4" maybe), then clamp the inside 1-by to the spacers and screw it down. Actually, I think I'd tack a piece of 1/4" or 3/8" ply to the spacer to make it wider than 1 1/2" so it would be easy to slide the 2x4 horizontals in. Make enough bows to have one every 4'. Attach the bows together at the top with 1/2" CDX plywood, 12" or so deep, both sides. Notch the very peak so you can put a 2x4 on edge to connect everything. You'll see horizontal stringers in this photo; use 2x4s and space them no wider than 4' and the building will be very strong. Again, if things are screwed together you can take it apart and probably sell the thing when finished with your project.

Back to Random Thoughts