Lattice Help!

[monika]

Hi All,

I'm building a yurt, and I'm having trouble with my lattice...

i'm not sure why, but as i'm building the lattice, it's not stretching easily. i tried putting smaller bolts in thinking that the tightness around the wood was what was keeping it from moving easily. ... even with the smaller bolts the wood is having trouble moving into diamond shape. is this normal? should i put it together at a different angle?

any ideas?

many thanks!

[hierony]

First, the most obvious--look at your lattice. Are all the lathe sticks parallel or did one some get bolted a little weird? It can be hard to keep track of all of them...

Are you joining the lattice at every intersection or just most of them? If you have something like 7 intersections on each lathe, you might join just 5 of them (for example: first, second, skip, fourth, skip, sixth, seventh).

The other possibility that I can think of is tightness--are you torquing down your bolts so there's absolutely no play? There needs to be just a little play, at least enough for each piece of the junction to slide against the other. I think traditionally leather strips are used, which stretch a little. I've used paracord, tying each bit (which left a little play). My purchased lathe uses chicago screws/sex bolts, which can tighten on themselves but won't clamp the lathe together too hard.

[monika]

Thanks Hierony,

I'm going to play around taking some of the bolts out... they're not super tight. tomorrow we'll see if putting on half works. structurally will it be as strong?

& thanks for your suggestions!! i really appreciate it. and your expediency keeps my flow going!

be well, more to be revealed!

[Bob Rowlands]

I initially had this problem. To solve I backed off the nylok nuts a half turn. After doing so the frame dang near spreads itself! lol

[hierony]

I think it's more typical to have 2/3 bolted, with about 1/3 of the junctions not having bolts/ties. My purchased lattice has 10 junctions with 7 bolted--bolted, bolted, skip, bolted, bolted, bolted, skip, bolted, bolted.

Both my purchased & homemade lattice can fold up to the full height (with no space between adjacent lathes) as well as fold completely down to an extended width (still no space between adjacent lathes).

Let us know what ends up working for you.

[Marshall Eppley]

When I built all of mine I put in all the bolts and just made them finger tight. And when you open it up raise it off the ground a little and pull while watching finger location.

[Surely Yurts - Steve]

Sounds like you are past this point, but...

I learned a trick that makes it much easier to assemble the lattice wall.

We rivet two slats together at the center hole, making an X.

Then we put the appropriate number of X's together for the wall and rivet those together and put the wall endings on last.

I've found it much less likely to screw it up this way.

-Cheers

[hierony]

For some reason, I can't figure out how to delete a post I wouldn't have written had I double checked my original reading. So this is here instead :P