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Revisiting the Yurt

Revisiting the Yurt

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If you haven’t been a reader here for very long, you might not know that back in 2013, I made a 16 foot diameter yurt (ger) with my husband. I wanted to try “large” felting and decided a yurt would be a good idea. It was a real learning experience and a ton of work but I had a good time and we ended up with a yurt (ger). Click on any of the links in the post to read the original post which goes into the details of how it was made.

The yurt began with buying 200 pounds of wool in March of 2013 and getting it processed. You can read all about it in my post “Wool Gathering”.

Then we moved on to building the frame. “Yurt Beginnings” explains how we handled the lattice walls.

We continued working on the walls with drilling, sanding and figuring out how it all went together in a big lattice puzzle. In my post, “Sanding and Being Confused”, you can read more.  Then another update about the wall is in the post “Wall Success”.

Then in August, I finally started felting. The photo above shows my sample for thickness and shrinkage which you can read about here. 

 

Next we started working on the roof structure which is called a tono.  We were on 51 days and counting for constructing the yurt.  Somehow, I’m getting tired just rereading these posts.

 

Finally, we got into the large format felting. We made our first wall panel and with the help of the tractor, we got it felted and fulled. 

 

Then because it was so much work, I recruited more labor. We had a felting party! And then we had a day of felting in the rain.

Next up was painting the wood structure orange which is a traditional color for Mongolian gers (yurts).

We were feverishly working into October to try and get this enormous task completed. It was getting cold and as you can see, I got a little muddy. But we were getting closer to the end being in sight.

One of my favorite things about building this yurt was the community involvement. I even had a youngster named Kostya who was born in Kazakhstan who came to learn about the process. 

And we did it! Our yurt raising party was held at the end of October and it worked. We had a yurt. It was really satisfying to complete the project and honestly, looking back now, I’m not sure where I got the energy. Of course I was a bit younger then but I guess determination and perseverance can get you anywhere. I hoped you enjoyed the reminiscence with me.

How to Build a Yurt in 51 Days and Counting

How to Build a Yurt in 51 Days and Counting

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I thought it would be a catchy title if I could say “How to Build a Yurt in 30 Days” but once I started counting how long we’ve been working that somehow didn’t work out. There is even a YouTube video on how to build a yurt in three days. Obviously, they had a few more people working on the project and didn’t have all those things like working full-time, running a gallery, doing paint class homework, company visiting etc. to get in the way. Any who, we’ve been progressing along. Dennis is still working on the tono which is the central ring in the roof that the roof poles fit into.

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This is the top layer of the three rings that will be glued together. Dennis made 4 grooves with the router for the crown portions. He made cuts in both of the crown pieces so they would fit together.

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Then he glued and screwed the crown portions in. Then he worked on drilling holes to put the dowels in the various layers so that the entire tono will be solid.

MINOLTA DIGITAL CAMERAHere’s the bottom tono layer with the holes drilled.

MINOLTA DIGITAL CAMERAAnd the middle tono layer with the dowel bits in place.

MINOLTA DIGITAL CAMERAA side view of the middle layer so you can see how the dowels will go into the top and bottom layers. Now he just has to put it all together and drill the 52 holes evenly around the edge at exactly a 33.3 degree angle. That should be easy 🙂

MINOLTA DIGITAL CAMERADennis has also been working on the roof poles. They need to fit into the holes in the tono.

MINOLTA DIGITAL CAMERASo we got this neat little multi-purpose tool to do that.

MINOLTA DIGITAL CAMERAHere’s about half of them completed. So you must be wondering by now what I have been doing. I have still been sanding wall rods. Remember all those holes in the wall rods? Well, they ended up having bits of wood still in the hole from the drilling process.

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So I have been using this little tool to get the wood out of the holes in the wall rods.

MINOLTA DIGITAL CAMERAThat’s only 990 holes that need to be reamed out on both sides. And then I had to sand them lightly again. So I have been sanding, sanding, sanding… And the roof poles still haven’t been sanded. This weekend though I am starting the felting process for the walls. I hope to take some videos to show you next week.