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Planning to build a yurt in Czech Republic

I'm always glad to see you guys like my products.
Brought you some more photos form today's work on the door handle:

The rod is squared (next to the fire, you can see the original scrap piece I cut it from)


The ends get stepped and flattened:




Then they are cut:


The cut halves are bent aside for easier access and formed into spikes


And curved:


Nail hole is punched through


Once the holes are punched, the ends are flattened again (punching deforms them slightly)


Now the ends are bent




The attaching flats are bent back:


The handle area is heated and twisted:


Then it's cleaned and beeswax is applied and baked-in to provide protective coating. Hope you've enjoyed today's show. It's all I've made for the yurt today, as I've been working on certain 10th century artifact replica, that I believe might sell well.
 
I will probably have a buddy of mine do it lol. The shipping fees would probably be crazy from where you are.
 
Depends on weight and size of course, but it's not so bad. Smaller boxes around 1kg weight are around $30. I think all the forged stuff so far on my door could be shipped for that. If you tell me how large and heavy items you'd need, I can estimate the postage price.
But I can understand if you prefer to make business with your buddy, that's ok. Just hunting for new customers :)
 
First fire in our yurt stove!


Seems to have good draft and burns the wood well. However, the stove, pipes and spark catcher were all new (or old, but never used) and all the protective oil and paint had to evaporate first. Took about an hour with open door to get all the smoke out.


Here you can see the door handle, attached to the inner side. The door is causing trouble, the wood seems to "work" a lot and one day it fits perfectly, the other it twists somehow, causing the hinge (always the lower hinge!) to bind and then deform in its thinnest part, I had to fix that couple times already. I don't know....maybe this will stop once the wood fully dries over summer? Or should I add some thick cross-ribs to the inner door side, that would help keeping the whole desk straight? Or should I make a new, over-engineered lower hinge that would take all the abuse the door puts on it?
Anyway, the chimney works well so far. Should I make it a little higher yet? Some of the pipes are deeply stuck into each other and would allow to move it upwards. On the other hand, the roof cover should be highly flame resistant and there's spark catcher behind the stove, so maybe it's high enough?
 
First night in the yurt! Still need to move in some more furniture and other stuff, but the stove is orking, we have our beds, tables and some ammo crates to sit on, so...the basics are there :)
It was about 11°C outside in the evening. Didn't measure the inner temperature, but it was very comfortable. We didn't keep the stove fired up too long and it was still warm there.
Thought I'll keep the tradition and hang the man's items on the right side. Should be your bow, whip and rifle, right?
Well, here we go:



And like they say in Mongolia, home is where you lay down your cap.
We're home!
 
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I initially had the stove pipe project up about a foot, but too many embers landed on the roof cover. I doubled up the arrestor screen and raised the pipe a couple more feet and that has alleviated the problem.

As far as 'x' bracing it certainly wouldn't hurt. I half lapped and glued my five panel door frame. I also half lapped and glued the boards onto the frame from the back side. Very solid site built door only 3/4" thick. The door is somewhat flexible, but that doesn't make a diifference considering how drafty the entire yurt is. :D
 
You got a really nice hand built yurt knecht. As I've said before, this thread is a big asset to the forum so others can see the build along. Again, VERY nicely done.

You have some nice insulation going on inside your yurt. It looks substantially warmer than mine. If you really want the heat to stay in, getting the door to close tightly against the jamb is a big deal, just like it is in any residential home. In fact even more important considering the yurts volume. A HUGE amount of air comes into my yurt at the door frame. That's the biggest source of air infiltration. If I was living in there, I'd add a door stop and reset my door.
 
Thanks! You've helped me a lot during the whole build. Thank you and also big thanks to everyone else who helped and adviced!
It's still not complete, but the main work is done. I'll post pics as we improve the interier (currently refurbishing an old table we'd like to use) and also when we build the stairs.
Thinking about adding another set of roof laths, maybe just some lighter ones, that would help supporting the roof insulation. Been thinking about woodcscrew eyelets between current lath holes in the ring, plus a woodscrew hook on the lath. I think that would work.

I can't do much with the door untill it fully dries and gets stabilized. But I'll surely see about airsealing the door then.
 
Here's a picture of the old table being refurbished. The board used to be coated in layers of cracked paint and filling of several kinds. I sanded it all off, pulled out several nails, got rid of some of the worst filling attempts, sanded off many dents and deep scratches...the table must have seen some really bad times, some old kitchen machines must have been viced to the edge countless times and when the board disconnected from the bottom, someone has just driven two large nails through the board, splitting one of the legs.... The board got two coats of linseed oil now. The bottom part and legs will be painted in ochre yellow.

The flash made some of the worst old fillings more visible, it looks much better in real.

 
That table is very nice. I did a big built in for some clients in 2005. At the end of the job, I redid the top of their kitchen table. This wasn't a typical hardwood dining table. The clients had found the table abandoned along a road! and took it home. It was actually a picnic table built with construction lumber and 4x4 post legs-no bench seats. Four wobbly legs and a top so cupped there literally wasn't a flat spot anywhere to set the dishes on. I mean cupped. How cupped? After planing and sanding the top boards flat the thickness was 3/4 at the edge of the 2X6s! I had to reset all the screws to keep my planer blades from getting eaten, and to solidify the boards they were all loose. I told them a good finish would be several coats of WB poly.

OK so fast forward several years. They called me back to do some other built ins in their new home. Well I'll be darned if they didn't still have that same table in the kitchen! I checked out how flat the top had stayed. It was still dead flat like the day I redid it. Amazing! The mom wanted to know why the table top was always sticky. Well they had 5 kids by then and another one on the way. That poly had been wiped to death. lol
 
Geesh, I have almost an identical table. I don't even want to tell you what I have done with it.. Okay, well it is outside on my deck, covered by the roof, where my deep fryer sits. It was a beautiful table at one point. I should probably take points from you and restore it.
 
Bob, it's always nice to see your work after a while and find out it's holding up well!
Jafo, good luck with your table! I'm really glad I'm fixing this one. Despite being old and all messed up, such table is much more worth to me than modern overpriced and crappy stuff. We have another old table in the yurt, I guess it must be from the 50s at least and it's good to go, just needs the legs repainted. That table has survived all those years, then been used by my roommate back at the college, who brought it to our appartment and we used it for several years... Then I inherited it when he left and used it pretty roughly as well. Had it as a workbench, with a vice and my reloading press attached to it. Then it travelled across the whole country to my current yurt site, strapped to the roof of my car, in hard rain. Then I used it here as another workbench (most of my photos from making the roof ring show it). I don't know what the board coating is made of, but that stuff is indestructible, it's still flat and straight. Nothing got loose on the bottom part, either. Just needs some paint attention and it's like new. If I bought a new table back at the college for the appartment, it would be history long ago. Funny thing is, that table was likely made as a regular massmade kitchen table, not an undestructible workbench... there was time when people were proud of making quality items, unlike today.
 
10-4 on 'built to last' comment Knecht. I won't go off on that, but, hand work has gotten so rare in this mass produced age that most folks wouldn't know well made unless someone that DID know showed them why the work is good. Suffice to say, the mark of the maker is seen in his work. Every last bit of work I've ever done has a stamp that says I did it. I've gotten get LOTS of compliments over the decades on the work I've done. Don't mean to sound like a jack@$$ but it's the simple truth. My work is my legacy once I'm gone.
 
Continued working on the table restoration. The bottom part will be painted, so I didn't clean it to bare wood like I did with the desk. Just sanded off all the chipping old paint and then glued two spots where the dovetails got loose over the years. Tomorrow when the glue is set, I'll start painting. Will also work on restoring the two drawers it has.


As for progress on the yurt itself, I'm just arranging its internet connection with my web provider and what I also did today was I've wire-brushed the stove to get rid of the old protective paint, that didn't want to burn out itself. Then fired the stove to burn out some other paint and oil residues that still remain on the pipes and spark trap. Painted some of the remaining floor sections that only had base paint. I sincerely hate the brown paint now. Some of the oldest sections that I've painted like two weeks ago have spots where the paint has been torn and peeled off by recent use. Still wet on the bottom side. Really not happy about it. That damn paint was expensive and won't dry after two weeks. Never buying that brand again for any serious work.
 
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The table story continues...bottom is painted with basepaint now. Drawers are sanded, waiting for my wife to decide whether she wants them painted or just oiled (it will be mainly her table).
They won't have the color we wanted in local paint shop before Monday, anyway, so there's no hurry.
I'll see about restoring/building some more furniture for the yurt.
 
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