seaming canvas

[Benene Lane]

I'm trying to decide between seaming the canvas lengthwise, draping over the roof and cutting out a pie shaped wedge, or just cutting many pie shaped wedges,and seaming. I've heard that its better this way for water runoff, any input would be helpful. Also has anyone had experience with different paints or coatings for canvas??

[Bob Rowlands]

To make the conical roof out of a tarp, I cut out a pie shaped wedge. One lap fell seam is a whole lot less work than several. No issues with water running off the roof.

No advice on the canvas coatings. In fact I am hoping someone would make a comment about that, I need to learn it from someone that's done it.

[Benene Lane]

Thanks Bob,
The canvas comes in standard widths so I have to seam it one way or the other, but your way might be less, now I wish I was better at math, lol. BL

[Bob Rowlands]

Hi Benene,

I bought a square canvas tarp a few feet bigger than my yurts diameter. Layed it atop the rafters and centered it. Marked the tarp with a sharpie a few inches smaller than the inside diameter of the smoke hole, and cut that out, just to rough size, so I could make a tight fold in the tarp. That way the tarp laid nice and flat flat on the rafters and not bunched up at the smoke hole.

Once folded snug I sharpied fold along both edges, and made witness marks for alignment about every foot down the seam. Cut out the pie shape and flat felled the seam.

Reinstalled the cover and centralized the hole over the ring. Remarked the hole for final cut two inches smaller than the inside diameter of the ring. Walked around the outside perimeter of yurt and sharpied a cut line on the tarp about two feet down from the top of the lattice. Remove tarp.

Cut and seamed the hole. Added fifteen anchor loops of webbing at the hole seam to lash to screw eyes in the ring. No plex bubble atop the yurt so it needed to be anchored. Cut and seam the perimeter. Added webbing loops equidistant around the perimeter seam for lashing. All that I just invented and it has worked great.

Alot of work, but actually easy. Cover couldn't fit any better. I did all this plus made the wall cover with my Moms portable sewing machine. An industrial machine is really the way to go for this stuff.

[Bob Rowlands]

Also that is 17oz. treated canvas tarp from MyTarp. Water treatment is like Sunforger. There was a smell at first but that disappeared in a month so. No flame resistant.

Canvas is up now for four continuous years and the water treatment is long gone. The canvas gets soaked immediately now and will drip in a heavy downpour. It was perfect a couple years ago, so two years is about it for that Sunforget type treatment.

Wall tents made from treated canvas are said to last a lifetime. They are generally up maybe two weeks a year. Based on my experience they are accurate in that assessment. I've gone twice that time in CO sun and this canvas is due for renewal. Good luck.

[hierony]

Simply Differently has a good calculator for determining how to sew up a yurt canvas, with very informative illustrations.

I made my first layer of roof

insulation

in the pieslice-wise method--it was a bit of work cutting out all the slices, hemming them, & sewing them together. It made a lot more seams than just a plain lane-wise setup would have...

For durability, a sacrificial top layer is a good idea. Something not too heavy (ie, not a pain to work with like thick canvas) or expensive, since it'll require replacing every few years. But it'd keep your expensive water-proof canvas protected from the sun, potentially extending it's lifetime from 2-3 years up to 5-10 or more.

[Bob Rowlands]

Good point. Even throwing a cheap poly tarp over the cover would save it. It'd look like a four eyed nerd in high waters, but big deal huh? lol

[Marshall Eppley]

An 18 ft pool cover fits nice on a 16 ft yurt and you can buy them insulated for a little over 100 bucks.

[Benene Lane]

I checked these out and only found blue ones, which would really heat up the yurt. Did you find any light colored ones?

[Benene Lane]

Thanks so much for the great ideas!