*PING* Gabbo Re: yurts (moved from Marketplace)

[WarrenSensei]

I love those yurts! I totally can't afford one, but I love them!
As a former engineering major, I *really* loved reading about their construction. It's really amazing what ancient peoples with no education developed just because it mattered.

While reading all this, thought of a way to make single person setup much easier than described on any site, with little change from the basic design. Never having seen a yurt being set up live, I'm not certain that the khana could take the momentarily unbalanced forces without tipping, though I'd be surprised if that were the case.

The idea is rather simple. If one rafter could hinge slightly and the tono were built with 3 fixed points instead of just one, then you could place 2 rafters into the tono and then placed on the cable and the third, hinged rafter could then be used by one person to raise the tono and 2 rafters like an A-frame up into position, stable, in one heave.

This would require that one rafter (probably the best one of the lot, with the fewest defects and tightest grain) be modified like this:


If I understand your drawings, Gabbo, than this should look somewhat familiar. I've removed the point of the rafter where it fits into the tono, along the arc of the "inscribed circle" of a triangle made from a 90 degree extension of the notch that locks the rafter in.
The hole and slot I've added would then match up with a post inserted into the 1x3 pieces in the tono to make a hinge pivot. A slot cut into the bottom ring of the tono would then allow this "master rafter" to have a decent angle to hinge through, while still locking in place like a regular rafter against the top ring and the post (instead of the top and bottom rings).

I did this quick and dirty, so if this isn't making sense, I can model the tono as well, and show how they would fit and work together.

~George Benedict (MKA Warren)

[Gabe / Genjiro]

George,

Many thanks for your kind words, and indeed I agree, the versatility and ingenuity of a Yurt's design (and all the variations thereupon) continue to surprise me in different ways. I have been fortunate to see up close and personal many variations on material, construction, and setup and I always take these into consideration when considering the design of my own. I don't think I am quite understanding where the "hinge" on the rafter would be though, and where the notch in your design goes over.

Honestly, doing a solo setup on a Yurt is not as hard as you might think. The biggest challenge in setting up for people not accustomed to yurts is precisely that they are not used to them. Given that they rely on entirely different principles than their European counterparts to stay up, it takes some time. With practice, though I find the little tips and tricks people use during a solo setup are no more complex than rope and pole supported tents. Come to think of it, I don't think there are very many people left at the BF Pennsic encampment that don't know how to set up a yurt.

That being said, I have solo'ed setup yurts all the way up to 16' using the standard "tripod" method. (Insert two rafters into the band and the ring, and use the third to push the ring and other rafters into place, of course the rafters are evenly spaced in thirds) and I am confident that with practice most anyone can do it.

Honestly the biggest concern in any design alteration for me is of course balancing it with the benefit that offers. In this particular case, given that a yurt of 16' or more is rarely if ever set up in a circumstance where there is only one person around (after all, Yurts aren't the type of tent you take backpacking ) and that there already exists a reasonable method of solo setup of average sized yurts, the benefits offered are probably not enough to warrant a change.

Still, If you'd like to elaborate on the questions I had above, just for theoritcal discussion, I'd be happy to converse with you =)

[WarrenSensei]

Ah, ok, it is *exactly* the "tripod method" as you say that I was trying to get at. Since no-one ever mentioned using this method, I figured that there was some difficulty in actually doing it that way, and I was just thinking about making it easier. The thought was that if that 3rd rafter you were using to lift the ring and other 2 rafters could hinge down (but not up) while staying in the ring, that this would make it easier to lift and move around and over the cable and into position.

[Demon_Rider]

[HeyJude]

Thats because you didnt have any clan gabbo there to help =)

[Demon_Rider]