how to build a pool deck out of pallets

Material options include stamped concrete, limestone, brick, tile, and pavers. Consider non-slip surfaces to protect kid injuries if your pool is used by children. Keep pool access in mind, too. If the cement around your inground pool borders your lawn, and swimmers have to trek through grass to get to the pool.

What is the concrete around a pool called?

The hardscape area around your swimming pool is called a surround, deck, or decking, even though it isn’t always made of wood or composite, like traditional outdoor decks with which we most often associate the words. Traditionally, most in-ground swimming pool decks are made of concrete.

What do you line a pallet pool with?

Line your pool with a plastic sheet that is large enough to go over the sides of your pallet structure – just like a pastry on a pie! If you want, you can cushion the corners with towels or any other material that you may prefer. Add a second layer of tarpaulin and tape it down to the pallets on the outside.

How many pallets do you need to build a pool?

40 pallets and a water pump and the tarp will be the main supply items for entire pool installation and you can get the perfect wood reconditioning and cutting apparatus and also the latest perfect hardware for an all lasting fittings and overall assembly of pool parts!

What do I need to build a pallet pool?

Can a deck hold a kids pool?

Weight. A single cubic foot of water weighs over 62 lbs.. Safety codes stipulate that a deck should only hold 40 lbs. … Most children’s pools hold much more than one cubic foot, but even one foot is in violation of this number, which does not include the weight of children in the pool or adults monitoring the activity.

Should I put a tarp under my Intex pool?

At the bare minimum, yes you should put a tarp underneath your Intex pool. Inflatable pools, Bestway and Summer Ways pools will also benefit from a tarp. Although a tarp will help protect your pool there are far better choices such as foam tiles or proper commercial under pool pads.

What do you put under an inflatable pool on rocks?

This article will cover 4 ideas of what to put under Intex pools:

• GOOD: Use the Intex ground cloth.
• BETTER: Use a third-party ground covering.
• BEST: Use interlocking foam tiles for the most protection.
• ALTERNATIVE: Use a roll of old carpet – it’s FREE!

How do you prepare outdoor pallets?

Make sure you have enough space and good ventilation, ideally working outside. It’s also a good idea to lay down some dust sheets. To sand wood pallets, use sandpaper sheets or rolls in a medium grit (e.g. 80) and gently sand all areas of the piece to remove rough edges, working in the direction of the wood grain.

How much does a pallet cost?

Reflecting Pool Information: Why Install A Reflecting Pond In Your Yard

For thousands of years, architects have used reflecting pools to create breathtaking views of monuments, temples, castles, and palaces. The Taj Mahal and Lincoln Memorial have two of the most famous reflection ponds; these clear, still water features are found in sacred places throughout the world. Your home doesn’t have to be a palace or temple to have a reflecting pond. They can simply reflect a scenic tree line, mountain backdrop, a small structure, a garden, or your home. Continue reading for more reflecting pool information.

What are Reflecting Pools?

Reflecting pools are water features that generally do not have fish, plants, waterfalls, or fountains. Their main purpose is to create a scenic reflection and they can be designed to fit into formal or natural garden styles. Formal reflecting pools are usually rectangular or round and created with bricks or perfectly cut stone. Natural reflecting pools are created to look like naturally occurring ponds and can be irregularly shaped.

You can install a reflecting pond to reflect scenic mountains in the distance, a colorful autumn tree line, a unique structure, or a garden that you can view from a porch, patio, or cozy chair next to a window. Reflecting pools can also be used to create spectacular curb appeal by reflecting the home or landscape; your home is your castle, after all.

Reflecting pools do not need to be very deep, as 6-12 inches (15-30 cm.) will provide a nice reflection. The bottom of the reflecting pond, does need to be dark though. Black pebbles are often used in reflecting pools to create a dark bottom. Black dyes may also be added to reflecting pools to create a better reflection.

While very large reflecting pools may have a small fountain in them, usually they do not contain anything that may create ripples or movement on the surface of the water, as this will disrupt the reflection. However, most pools will require some sort of filtration and regular maintenance to keep the water clear.

Reflecting Pool Uses in Gardens

Before building a reflecting pool, there are a few things you should take in to consideration. First, you need to decide what you would like the pond to reflect and where you would like to view it from. However, a pond or pool of any kind will need to be built on a level surface, so the perfect spot may need to be properly leveled.

Fallen leaves and plant debris can quickly fill up a small pool, so it’s best to locate the pond away from deciduous trees. A gentle filtration system with UV can help control algae growth and the breeding of insects like mosquitos. There are also pond products that you can purchase to control algae and insect larvae.

A natural reflecting pool is usually easier for the beginner. To create one yourself, you simply need to dig out and level the pond, lay down pond underlayment, cover the underlayment with pond liner, edge the pond with stone or boulders to hide the edges of the pond liner, then fill the pool with water. Pond liner is usually black, so it is up to you to decide whether to line the bottom with black pebbles or use dyes. Keep in mind that wildlife may visit reflecting pools before using products that may harm them.

30 Above Ground Pool Deck Ideas with Steps to Build and The Cost

Who doesn’t like a nice swimming pool in their backyard? Having a swimming pool is a luxury to have. Back then, you will need to dig your backyard to build a swimming pool.

Today, things are different. Digging the backyard is not needed. Rather than building a swimming pool under the ground, many people nowadays build it above the ground. Are you interested?

Well, if you are interested, you want to read on. Here, we will talk about above ground pool deck ideas. We will tell you about how to build it, how much does it cost to build one and giving you some examples to inspire you. Alright, now let’s get started.

How to Build Above Ground Pool with Decks?

Let’s start with how to build an above ground swimming pool. How do you build it? The first thing you need to do is to plan it. It will be easier to plan an above ground swimming pool if you have inspirations.

Don’t worry, we will provide some inspirations to you later. So how do you plan it? The planning is mostly about how the swimming pool looks, how large the pool, how the pool is shaped, the patio, the decks, the furniture, and so on. Plan these beforehand.

You can also consult with above ground swimming pools builders about it. They will gladly help you in the process. You can also ask them about deck plans and a materials list as well, which they usually provide for free if you hire them.

So, yeah, you can either build an above ground swimming pool yourself or hiring a builder to do it for you. Whichever you choose, it is yours to decide. If you decide to build an above ground swimming pool yourself, you can follow the steps below.

Steps to Building an Above Ground Pool with Decks

Remember, this guide is for building a deck surrounding a pool with 21 ft. diameter. The deck is created with pressure-treated lumber. It includes a full 360-degree wraparound deck connected to a 10 x 18 ft. sun deck.

On one hand, the circular pool deck is 3 1/2 ft. wide, which allows for easy access to the pool. On the other hand, the sun deck is able to accommodate a table, several chairs, as well as several chaise lounges.

For this project, you will need 8 x 11 inch. pre-cast piers weighed approximately 45 pounds with 3 ½ inch square, recessed socket and 1 ½ wide slots molded on top of each pier.

The socket will be used to support a 4×4 post (positioned vertically) and the slots accommodate 2×6 joists. The total cost of these materials is about $2,400.

Step 1: Floor Framing

The framing process will require 18 floor-joist frames. Start the process by using the 2×6 lumbers to build 17 frames with exact measurements. The last frame will be built later to fit the rest when they are already assembled.

To quicken the process, attach galvanized-metal corner brackets onto the four perimeter boards. After that, utilize the joist hangers to install the joist that will serve as the center support.

Step 2: Piers and Posts

The next is setting the piers and posts. The joists used as floor frames will be supported by several 4×4 posts put on concrete pier blocks. To set the piers and posts of the pool, start by setting a pair of concrete pier blocks on the ground, just beside the pool. Ensure that the ground is level and even. If it isn’t level and uneven, make it level and even by using nearby soil.

Continue the process by placing a pair of concrete per blocks. Place the pair of blocks so that their center is approximately 12 inches from the pool wall. Place the next pair of blocks so that their center is approximately 18 inches from the first blocks’ center.

Mold the square sockets into the piers. Stand two 4×4 posts in the sockets. Place a 4 ft. level across the pool’s top cap. Across the 4×4 posts, mark a line. Make sure the line is level. Then, remove these posts. Prepare to measure them down.

From each line of the posts, measure down a distance that is equal to the pool coping’s thickness and add about ½ inches for expansion, 1 ½ inch for the 2×6 decking, and 5 ½ inches for the 2×6 floor frame. Mark each position and cut the posts to length.

After the posts are cut, put them back on the piers. Be sure that they are in the same positions when you put them the first time. Repeat the process above for the next piers and posts.

After you cut the second pair to size, place them into the piers and put a floor-joist frame above them. Put the deck screws to connect the frame and the posts. Keep doing this and set frames, pier blocks, and posts around the pool.

After you finish installing the 17 frames, measure the remaining space and cut the last frame to size. Put the last frame to fill the space. Screw 2×4 diagonal braces into the 4×4 posts. Set the posts and pier blocks for 10×18 ft. sun deck.

The piers should be arranged in 11 rows with 24 inches space on center. Install the floor joists (the 2×6 one) after the posts are cut and placed in the piers. Screw down some deck screws to fasten the joists.

Step 3: Laying the Deck

Cut some of the 2x6s until they are 4 ft. in length. Cut one end of each board at 80 degrees. Put the first board’s angled end under the coping of the pool. Be sure that it is ½ inch (at minimum) away from the wall of the pool.

Set the board’s log edge between two floor-joist frames that are adjoined. Fasten them with deck screws. Continue to do this until all boards are installed. Trim the overhanging boards. Move on the sun deck and ensure that the boards are installed tightly together.

Step 4: Guardrails and Stairs

To save time, purchase precut railing posts. Install them around the deck and fasten them with galvanized screws. Finish the construction by building stairs from the ground leading to the sun deck. How the guardrails and stairs are shaped is up to you.

Above Ground Pool with Decks Cost

Unfortunately, we can’t give you the exact estimate of the total cost of building an above ground swimming pool with decks. That being said, the materials needed to build the example above cost about $2,400.

This cost includes pressure-treated lumber, screws, joist hangers, as well as pier blocks. Of course, your cost may not be the same. Other factors, such as area preparation, may affect the total cost as well.

If you want to build an above ground swimming pool with decks but don’t have the time to do it, you can always hire above ground swimming pools builders. Usually, if you hire a builder, they will include free deck plans, which include instructors, cost estimator, and a detailed list of the materials required.

Hiring a builder to build an above ground swimming pool may seem costlier than building it DIY-way, but it removes all the hassle and headache you may have when you build it on your own? Is it worth it? That’s for you to answer.

Above Ground Pool Deck Ideas

After we know how to build above ground pool with deck, you can find some inspiration. Use it to give you advice before building above ground pool with a deck that suits you. You can see some ideas below.

Above Ground Pool with Deck Backyard

A pool with a deck surrounding it makes it appears as if the pool is separate from the house. Since the pool seems to be private, the place is perfect for occasions like sunbathing retreat or just spending the time with family and friends. This above ground pool deck ideas is perfect for small to middle size backyard.

corpsecomic.comaquastarmi.comhgtv.comthespruce.comtrendhmdcr.com

Above Ground Pool with Separated Deck

Who says you can only have one deck? You are not limited to building a swimming pool surrounded by a deck for sure. You can also build multiple connected decks. This design is good if you want to add other areas such as a spa or patio near the pool.

thespruce.comjacobsatvadventures.compinterest.comabovegroundpoolcompany.comrisingsunpools.com

Above Ground Pool with Fenceless Deck

Want to enjoy the surrounding view? If that’s what you want, you can build an above ground swimming pool with fenceless deck. Since the above ground pool deck ideas like this have more ‘open’ space, it is a good idea to have a retractable pool cover. Especially if there are a lot of trees around the pool. A retractable pool cover will make the pool easier to clean.

pinterest.comthespruce.comhgtv.comperthtimberpatios.comdonpedrobrooklyn.com

Above Ground Pool Looks Like In-ground

You can build an above ground swimming pool that looks like an in-ground one. To build a pool like this, you will need to build a level deck and a bit deeper pool. This type of deck works better if there is no fence or guardrails surrounding the pool.

pinterest.comthepatioideas.compinterest.compinterest.comclarkrubber.com.au

Above Ground Pool with Rustic Deck

These above ground pool deck ideas can be dreamy, too. To get the dreamy vibe, you will need to use rustic wood and artificial lights. Adding wooden fences around the pool is also a great idea. For the best result, be sure that the color of the wood and the artificial lights you are using are matching.

wargotzforussenate.orgjayne-atkinson.comburtonpools.comswanhillpoolsspa.com.aupinterest.com

Above Ground Pool with Connecting Deck with the House

This pool deck design will require more planning. The above ground pool with this design need a lot of wood deck to connect your house with your pool. Maybe it cost much money but but you won’t regret it. You can have an aesthetic and functional swimming pool near your home.

maureengreencny.comcapitaldecks.capinterest.compinterest.compinterest.com

Pool Equipment Enclosure Ideas – PoolCareExpert

A pool equipment enclosure is popular for hiding away all the unsightly gear you use to clean and maintain your swimming pool and spa. You could store the equipment inside your house or garage, if you have the room, but you really need the equipment close to your pool for easy access.

Pool equipment is not attractive to look at and many pool owners want to hide or store away the equipment. A swimming pool equipment enclosure will not only hide the equipment but will protect it from the sun, wind and rain. There are many options for hiding your pool gear including fences, screens, fake rocks, cabinets, boxes and garden sheds.

Pool Equipment Enclosure

There are many options to hide away your pool gear. The simplest is to purchase a box or garden shed and place it in your garden. If you are a handyman you will probably want to construct an enclosure yourself.

Landscaping & Plants

One of the easiest and least expensive ways to hide the pool equipment is to plant a garden in front of it. Select plants that will grow up to 1 meter (3 ft.) high so that they just block out the equipment. You don’t want the plants to become a gardening maintenance issue so select evergreen shrubs. Some people like to create a small hedge that they can shape with hedge trimmers.

Garden Sheds

Maybe you want to completely enclose the pool equipment to protect it from the weather and keep your backyard tidy.

The cheapest option for swimming pool equipment enclosures is to purchase a small garden shed. These sheds come in a kitset package and are very easy to assemble. There are sheds made with a variety of materials such as wood, plastic or metal.

Place the shed over a concreted area or pave the ground underneath.

The added advantage of a garden shed is that you can store pool cleaning equipment, pool toys, outdoor furniture and gardening tools in the shed.

Fences & Screens

If you are a home handyman you can build a small decorative fence around the pool equipment to keep it out of sight. Usually you only need to build 2 sides so that you can access the equipment from the third open side.

The simplest way to build it is to purchase three metal swimming pool fence posts. Bolt them down to the concrete (or concrete them into the ground) and screw timber or metal palings horizontally onto the posts. Some people prefer to use vinyl panels or lattice rather than metal or timber.

Another way is to erect a section of pool fence around the equipment and use opaque glass or pre-fabricated vinyl fence panels to hide the equipment.

How to Build a Pool Equipment Enclosure

If you have a smaller budget, there are many options available for building your own customized pool equipment enclosure. There are many plans available online that you can use to do-it-yourself and build an enclosure to fit your backyard.

A customized swimming pool equipment enclosure is normally designed as a box with a lid. The lid has a hinge or piston strut to hold it open while you access the equipment. Other designs can be a garden shed, fake rock that lifts up, seat with storage underneath or large storage cabinet. Purchasing some plans is easy and ensures you have a proven design to follow so you know it will turn out right.

Note: Do not store pool chemicals next to the pump and filter. These chemicals can cause rust to metal components. Store the pool chemicals in another location that is cool, dry and where children cannot access the chemicals.

Wood Construction

The most popular, easiest and least expensive building material to work with is wood.

It’s easy for a home handyman to construct a wood pool equipment enclosure that is painted or stained to match your existing décor.

Metal Construction

The second most popular construction material is metal.

A home handyman can cut and mount color bonded steel panels onto a metal frame to create a customized pool equipment enclosure. Build the enclosure to house all your pool gear, gardening equipment, lawnmower, power tools, etc.

Step 1: Measure the Pool Equipment

Measure your pool equipment to determine the dimensions of the pool equipment enclosure. Place all the equipment in a pile to understand what volume your enclosure will need to hold. It’s always better to build it a little larger than necessary to make sure it will store any additional equipment in future.

Step 2: Purchase the Materials

Purchase online or visit your local hardware store to source the materials.

Many hardware stores provide a cutting service if you don’t feel competent to cut the materials yourself. Make sure you give them the most accurate measurements you can.

Remember that if you building with wood you will need to paint or stain the timber to protect it from the weather.

Step 3: Measure & Cut

Measure and cut the materials to your plan.

I usually measure three times before I make a cut to ensure it is right.

Step 4: Construction

Follow your plan and fit together the pieces. I recommend using screws to assemble timber or metal.

Timber needs to be pre-drilled to create a hole to prevent the timber splitting when screwing it together.

When fitting together metal sheets on a metal frame use self-taping metal screws. These metal screws have a drill head to cut into the metal making it easy it attach two pieces of metal together.

Step 5: Paint or Stain

If you built your new pool equipment enclosure from timber you will need to stain or paint to seal the wood and protect it from the weather.

Choose a color or stain to match your home décor.

Read our article on How to Clean Your Swimming Pool

Conclusion

Building a swimming pool equipment enclosure is a simple way to hide unsightly pool equipment and chemicals. It’s also a good way to protect your pool equipment from the weather. Many pool owners choose to build a larger enclosure to store all their pool accessories and toys. And the cost of building the enclosure will be easily recouped by protecting your equipment to make it last longer.

How to Build a Cardano Stake Pool on MainNet

To celebrate the launch of our Cardano Stake Pool [NASEC1] created in the name of increasing decentralisation we would like to bring to the community a more wordy stake pool guide. We will try to explain exactly what is happening in each step so that any one can help the efforts of decentralisation. All delegated stake is greatly appreciated and we hope to become an active part of the Cardano community.

So first thing’s first, we will follow along with the Official Documentation guide that we used available on the Cardano site.

This guide is full of all the information to build your node but it is not well organised, had a few typos at the time of us building our node and leaves out some vital information so you will want to refer back here at each step.

Taken directly from the official docs page:

• operational knowledge of how to set up, run and maintain a Cardano node continuously
• a commitment to maintain your node 24/7/365
• system operation skills
• server administration skills (operational and maintenance).
• experience of development and operations (DevOps) would be very useful

We are going to need to add a few things here.

Firstly it should be noted that you will need at least 3 Ada to create their pool but you will likely want more Ada than this.

Second you will need an absolute minimum of 2 if not 3 servers whether they are VPS or dedicated machines meeting the minimum specifications. We need 2 servers as the one will be our Relay and the second our Producer, both will run Ubuntu 20.04 LTS.

2 x Servers (VMs or physical hosts) with the following minimum specs:

• 4 GB of RAM
• 2 CPU cores
• 10 GB Disk space
• A public IP address

However it should be observed that the producer node only communicates with your own relays and as such this can operate on a private network so long as all of your relays have network connectivity to it. Your producer node does not communicate directly with the wider network and as a security measure we recommend hosting it on a private network.

Also please be extra careful with your .skeys as those are your private keys and they have to remain private. Furthermore, your cold keys should never be stored on your production servers. I know it’s painful to transfer files using a USB stick but that’s how it should be done.  

We need the following packages and tools on top of our Ubuntu server to download the source code and build it:

• The version control system git,
• The gcc C-compiler,
• C++ support for gcc,
• Developer libraries for the arbitrary precision library gmp,
• Developer libraries for the compression library zlib,
• Developer libraries for systemd,
• Developer libraries for ncurses,
• ncurses compatibility libraries,
• The Haskell build tool cabal,
• The GHC Haskell compiler.

Update our repositories:

sudo apt-get update -y sudo apt-get install automake build-essential pkg-config libffi-dev libgmp-dev libssl-dev libtinfo-dev libsystemd-dev zlib1g-dev make g++ tmux git jq wget libncursesw5 libtool autoconf -y

We’ll also need the latest Cabal, to download as follows.

wget https://downloads.haskell.org/~cabal/cabal-install-3.2.0.0/cabal-install-3.2.0.0-x86_64-unknown-linux.tar.xz tar -xf cabal-install-3.2.0.0-x86_64-unknown-linux.tar.xz rm cabal-install-3.2.0.0-x86_64-unknown-linux.tar.xz cabal.sig mkdir -p ~/.local/bin mv cabal ~/.local/bin/

Verify that .local/bin is in your PATH

Should print output including the directory you created above

If .local/bin is not in the PATH, you need to amend the following line to your .bashrc file

vi ~/.bashrc

if ! shopt -oq posix; then if [ -f /usr/share/bash-completion/bash_completion ]; then . /usr/share/bash-completion/bash_completion elif [ -f /etc/bash_completion ]; then . /etc/bash_completion fi fi export PATH=”~/.local/bin:$PATH”

Save the file and source it using

Update Cabal

Confirm you are running the latest cabal

The latest version at the time of writing 3.2.0.0

Download GHC, untar the file and then remove the left over tar bundle.

wget https://downloads.haskell.org/~ghc/8.6.5/ghc-8.6.5-x86_64-deb9-linux.tar.xz tar -xf ghc-8.6.5-x86_64-deb9-linux.tar.xz rm ghc-8.6.5-x86_64-deb9-linux.tar.xz

Install GHC

./configure sudo make install

Check the GHC version

Install Libsodium

cd ~ git clone https://github.com/input-output-hk/libsodium cd libsodium git checkout 66f017f1 ./autogen.sh ./configure make sudo make install

Amend the following to your .bashrc file and source it.

export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=”/usr/local/lib:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH” export PKG_CONFIG_PATH=”/usr/local/lib/pkgconfig:$PKG_CONFIG_PATH”

Source the file so that these system variables are read.

Download the source code for cardano-node

git clone https://github.com/input-output-hk/cardano-node.git cd cardano-node git fetch –all –tags git tag

At the time of writing the latest is 1.19.1, if there is a newer version please use it.

Build and Install the Node with Cabal

Copy the executables files to the .local/bin directory.

cp -p dist-newstyle/build/x86_64-linux/ghc-8.6.5/cardano-node-1.19.1/x/cardano-node/build/cardano-node/cardano-node ~/.local/bin/ cp -p dist-newstyle/build/x86_64-linux/ghc-8.6.5/cardano-cli-1.19.1/x/cardano-cli/build/cardano-cli/cardano-cli ~/.local/bin/

Check the version installed.

So now we have created a Cardano node.
Note: To update your Cardano node to a newer version, the same process must be repeated as above with a different tag selected.

For the node to connect to the network we need 3 configuration files, download them from the terminal.

wget https://hydra.iohk.io/job/Cardano/cardano-node/cardano-deployment/latest-finished/download/1/mainnet-config.json wget https://hydra.iohk.io/job/Cardano/cardano-node/cardano-deployment/latest-finished/download/1/mainnet-byron-genesis.json wget https://hydra.iohk.io/job/Cardano/cardano-node/cardano-deployment/latest-finished/download/1/mainnet-shelley-genesis.json wget https://hydra.iohk.io/job/Cardano/cardano-node/cardano-deployment/latest-finished/download/1/mainnet-topology.json

Up to this point on the guide, the setup/steps are the same both for the relay node(s) and the producer as we basically have installed the binaries that allow us to run the Cardano protocol. If it’s easier for you, you can clone the node created above and continue with the configuration.

Configure the Cardano Relay Node

The file describing the topology: mainnet-topology.json

This file should be configured as follows, be careful this must follow exact JSON syntax. Do not use tabs only spaces.

{ “Producers”: [ { “addr”: “relays-new.cardano-mainnet.iohk.io”, “port”: 3001, “valency”: 2 }, { “addr”: ““, “port”: 3002, “valency”: 1 } ] }

Just change the to your Producer’s real IP.

The configuration file: mainnet-config.json

There is nothing to change here, if you want to use a separate dedicated monitoring server, change the EKG running port from the localhost (127.0.0.1) to 0.0.0.0 to be able to fetch the data.

“hasEKG”: 12788, “hasPrometheus”: [ “127.0.0.1”, 12798

!!!! We have to be really careful though as if we don’t configure our firewall properly anyone will be able to get the EKG data from our server!!!

And those are all the changes we have to make.

To start the node use

cardano-node run –topology mainnet-topology.json –database-path db/ –socket-path node.socket –host-addr –port 3000 –config mainnet-config.json

TIP: You can use some of the scripts to make your life easier using tmux.

Check that the node is syncing by fetching the current tip. When syncing slotNo should be increasing.

cardano-cli shelley query tip –mainnet Rerun this command and the numbers should increase

Cool, now let it run, it will take some time for the database to sync up, be patient!

Configure the Producer Node

This is an exact replica of the steps above however we are changing the mainnet-topology.json file:

{ “Producers”: [ { “addr”: ““, “port”: 3000, “valency”: 1 } ] }

If you have multiple relays add them all.

Security Warning: Please make sure the Producer can be accessed only by your own Relays

Also if your monitoring server is on a separate server make the same change as in the Relay node above in the mainnet-config.json file.

Creating Keys and Addresses

In the Shelley era of Cardano, every stakeholder can have two sets of keys and addresses:

1. Payment Keys and Addresses: To send and receive transactions
2. Stake Keys and Addresses: To control protocol participation, create a stake pool, delegate and receive rewards.

cardano-cli shelley address key-gen –verification-key-file payment.vkey –signing-key-file payment.skey

And you should now have 2 keys, payment.vkey and payment.skey 

payment.vkey  is the public key
payment.skey  is the private key

Stake key pair, these can be generated using: 

cardano-cli shelley stake-address key-gen –verification-key-file stake.vkey –signing-key-file stake.skey

Payment Address

We’ll use as input the payment.vkey and stake.vkey produced above:

cardano-cli shelley address build –payment-verification-key-file payment.vkey –stake-verification-key-file stake.vkey –out-file payment.addr –mainnet

Stake address

This address will not receive any payments, only the pool rewards.

We’ll use as input the stake.vkey from above:

cardano-cli shelley stake-address build
–stake-verification-key-file stake.vkey
–out-file stake.addr
–mainnet

Generating keys for our block-producing node

Generate the KES Key pair

cardano-cli shelley node key-gen-KES –verification-key-file kes.vkey –signing-key-file kes.skey

Generate VRF Key pair

cardano-cli shelley node key-gen-VRF –verification-key-file vrf.vkey –signing-key-file vrf.skey

In an offline machine and only offline!!! Create the cold keys.

To be able to do that, copy the cardano-cli binaries from one of you nodes to this offline machine using a usb stick . the file is ~/.local/bin/cardano-cli

mkdir pool-keys cd pool-keys cardano-cli shelley node key-gen –cold-verification-key-file cold.vkey –cold-signing-key-file cold.skey –operational-certificate-issue-counter-file cold.counter

Make sure to back up all your keys to another secure storage device. Make multiple copies.

So now we have all the keys required to create an operational certificate to verify the pool has the authority to run, but before doing that, we have to know the kesPeriod by dividing the slot tip number by the slotsPerKESPeriod and this is done on our Producer node.

 The current tip of the blockchain is:

cardano-cli shelley query tip –mainnet

Look for slotNo which in our case is  7909745.

grep KESPeriod mainnet-shelley-genesis.json

And the slotsPerKESPeriod which is 129600

So the kes-period is 61

Now we can go back to our offline machine and generate the certificate:

cardano-cli shelley node issue-op-cert –kes-verification-key-file kes.vkey –cold-signing-key-file cold.skey –operational-certificate-issue-counter cold.counter –kes-period 59 –out-file node.cert

Next, copy the node.cert file to your producer node and make sure the following files are present:

kes.skey  kes.vkey  node.cert  vrf.skey  vrf.vkey

Register Stake Address on the Blockchain

On your Producer node:

Create your stake certificate using stake.vkey from above: 

cardano-cli shelley stake-address registration-certificate –stake-verification-key-file stake.vkey –out-file stake.cert

Find your balance and UTXOs.

cardano-cli shelley query utxo –address $(cat payment.addr) –mainnet

Keep in mind that this is the total Lovelace in your payment.addr, this means that in our case as we sent the funds in two transactions the total would be 500640398.

Get protocol parameters

cardano-cli shelley query protocol-parameters –mainnet –out-file protocol.json

Draft the transaction

cardano-cli shelley transaction build-raw –tx-in 4e3a6e7fdcb0d0efa17bf79c13aed2b4cb9baf37fb1aa2e39553d5bd720c5c99#4 –tx-out $(cat payment.addr)+0 –ttl 0 –fee 0 –out-file tx.draft

Calculate the fee

cardano-cli shelley transaction calculate-min-fee –tx-body-file tx.draft –tx-in-count 1 –tx-out-count 2 –witness-count 1 –byron-witness-count 0 –mainnet –protocol-params-file protocol.json

You have to make sure your balance is greater than cost of fee + keyDeposit.

At the moment the pool does not have any Ada, you will use the payment.addr to send some Ada to.

The keyDeposit is 2000000 lovelace:

grep keyDeposit protocol.json

Calculate the change to send back to the payment address:

expr – –

In our case:

expr 500640398 – 2000000 – 167965

Determine the TTL of the transaction

cardano-cli shelley query tip –mainnet

Find the tip from the command above and add 1000 slots to make sure the TTL is not to short:

7913908 + 1000 = 7914908

Build the transaction

cardano-cli shelley transaction build-raw –tx-in 4e3a6e7fdcb0d0efa17bf79c13aed2b4cb9baf37fb1aa2e39553d5bd720c5c99#4 –tx-out $(cat payment2.addr)+10000000 –tx-out $(cat payment.addr)+9832035 –ttl 7914908 –fee 167965 –out-file tx.raw

Security Warning: After you copy the tx.raw file to your offline machine

Sign the transaction

cardano-cli shelley transaction sign –tx-body-file tx.raw –signing-key-file payment.skey –mainnet –out-file tx.signed

Copy back your tx.signed to your Producer

Submit the transaction

cardano-cli shelley transaction submit –tx-file tx.signed –mainnet

Register your Stake Pool 

Create a JSON file with your pool’s metadata and name it poolMetadata.json:

Eg.

{ “name”: “NASec1”, “description”: “London based data centre hosted dedicated server with RAID1 NVMe disks”, “ticker”: “NASEC”, “homepage”: “https://nasec.co.uk/cardano” }

Get the hash of the file:

cardano-cli shelley stake-pool metadata-hash –pool-metadata-file poolMetadata.json

And now we can generate the pool registration certificate:

Back to our offline machine: run the command below using the files for input from above:

cardano-cli shelley stake-pool registration-certificate –cold-verification-key-file cold.vkey –vrf-verification-key-file vrf.vkey –pool-pledge –pool-cost –pool-margin –pool-reward-account-verification-key-file stake.vkey –pool-owner-stake-verification-key-file stake.vkey –mainnet –pool-relay-ipv4 –pool-relay-port –metadata-url https://git.io/JJWdJ –metadata-hash –out-file pool-registration.cert

We Also need the delegation certificate pledge:

cardano-cli shelley stake-address delegation-certificate –stake-verification-key-file stake.vkey –cold-verification-key-file $HOME/cold-keys/node.vkey –out-file deleg.cert

Then copy pool-registration.cert and deleg.cert to your Producer node 

Submit the pool certificate and delegation certificate to the blockchain

To submit the pool registration certificate and the delegation certificates to the blockchain by including them in one transaction at least, like above, draft the transaction first and then build, sign and submit it to the blockchain.

Draft the transaction

cardano-cli shelley transaction build-raw –tx-in # –tx-out $(cat payment.addr)+0 –ttl 0 –fee 0 –out-file tx.draft –certificate-file pool-registration.cert –certificate-file delegation.cert

Calculate the fees:

cardano-cli shelley transaction calculate-min-fee –tx-body-file tx.raw –tx-in-count 1 –tx-out-count 1 –mainnet –witness-count 1 –byron-witness-count 0 –protocol-params-file protocol.json

Registering a stake pool requires a deposit. This amount is specified in protocol.json, for the mainet this is set to  500000000 in Lovelace.

Calculate the change after the transaction:

expr – 500000000 –

Build the transaction:

cardano-cli shelley transaction build-raw –tx-in # –tx-out $(cat payment.addr)+ –ttl –fee –out-file tx.raw –certificate-file pool-registration.cert –certificate-file delegation.cert

Sign the transaction

cardano-cli shelley transaction sign –tx-body-file tx.raw –signing-key-file payment.skey –signing-key-file stake.skey –signing-key-file cold.skey –mainnet –out-file tx.signed

And finally submit it to the blockchain

cardano-cli shelley transaction submit –tx-file tx.signed –mainnet

To make sure your stake pool is now registered, go back to your offline machine to get the stakepoolid.txt

cardano-cli shelley stake-pool id –verification-key-file $HOME/cold-keys/node.vkey > stakepoolid.txt

Copy it to your producer node and run:

cardano-cli shelley query ledger-state –mainnet | grep publicKey | grep $(cat stakepoolid.txt)

If you get a non-empty string, well done, your pool is registered to the Cardano mainnet!!!

Now you have a Cardano Stake Pool configured that consists of a Relay and a Producer node and is registered to the Mainnet. You should be able to see your pool under Stake Pools in Daedalus and in https://pooltool.io/ as well.

Please let us know if you spot any typos/errors in the comments below.

Also we would like to invite you to delegrate your stake to NASEC1 and help the decentralisation of the blockchain.

Happy staking!

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