Compression Ring

[RickWilliams86]

In the process of designing and building some yurts,I helped build a 35 foot Smiley Wood yurts where my friend bought the roof package.
We want to build some smaller one like in the 14 foot size for a friend of his and I would like to put a operable skylight in for ventilation, I am a woodworker and can build this especially because I have access to a CNC router, but wouldn't mind checking out any information as to other people who might of built some.

So if anyone has any suggestions or links I would appreciate it.

[Bob Rowlands]

Ok, here is a simple ring for a small yurt. I built two of them for my 14' and 16' yurts. Google:

Clan Yama Kaminari Yurt

Scroll down the front page and click on 'yurt build', or 'build it', at the bottom of the page on the left side.

Run through the build until you get to the ring. The ring details are good. However an improvement I made was to substitute appropriately sized 4x4 spacers for the 1X in the plan. Much stronger, easier to build and less fiddling around. Plus I glued the solid spacers top and bottom to the plywood with PL construction adhesive, and screwed everything together with 3" plated deck screws. Bore pilot holes so nothing splits.

Just size the 4x4 to the outside dimensions of the two 1X spacers and make solid blocking. You can size and layout the 4x spacers on one of the two plywood rings. You need to rip the 4x4 to appropriate dimension. Cut the taper with your motorized miter box. Doesn't read like it, but it's actually a snap to do.

BTW I built my yurt to those plans. A strong mother it is. It has been up for almost three years straight, and withstood ferocious wind. If you want to see pics, type 'home made yurt Bob Rowlands' on google images. Mine is the primitive looking yurt with rafters either side of a hunter green door. There are detail pics in there of the ring. Mine has screw eyes and the cover is lashed to the ring. You could easily adapt a standard plex type yurt cap to the ring.

There you go. Good luck.

[Yurtman]

If you want to try something adventurous, then you could laminate one with veneer. This is how I make them. They are only 3/4" thick for the small yurts I make so you should beef them up a bit.

It's a lot more work to do a laminated ring as you have to build the mould first, but is is lightweight and very elegant.

CampingYurts.com