Thickness of Khana Poles?

[ChrisL]

Hi chaps / Chapesses

so iv been getting on with (or trying to) debarking coppiced Khana poles with a draw-knife.
with bark stripped, they between 1" and 1-1/2" thickness.
done 20ish and am looking to steam bend the 1st batch.

but im having some uncertainties about the thickness of the poles.

how is thickness of khana poles going to effect transport of Yurt?
some of the poles are not entirely straight. during selection for 1st coppicing session, i may have been too lenient with picking not so straight poles to cut.

im worried that with crooked + thick kana poles, the wall sections might not collaps very well for transport.

should i consider shaving all poles down to 1" thickness?

about 50% of my poles have some kind of small S bend. should i discard these?

[Bob Rowlands]

The real test is to continue your work until you have about half the total number made up, install in every other cross, and see how they work. My guess is that if they are long enough and they seat nicely in the ring and on the lath they will work OK. That is assuming no snow load. My guess is that yurts long ago didn't have anywhere near the machine made perfection we find normal nowadays, yet those primitive 'imperfect' yurts housed families in comfort for many hundreds of years. Please let us know how your rafters work. Good luck.

[ChrisL]

Ah thanks Bob. A nice reminder to just go ahead and try it out, nothing to lose

I may have gotten my terminology wrong up there. the poles in question are not roof rafters, but wall poles.

with 10 or so holes drilled in each pole, to form collapsible lattice.

i concerned a bit with S-bends/ dog legs like in picture.

[Bob Rowlands]

OK. You might try assembling an entire wall section and see if it will open and close? It might work just fine if the joints aren't bound up too tight. I assume you are planning on using cordage to assemble the wall.

I have seen shoots used for wall and although not exactly uniform and straight, they were in the erected yurt so they must be OK. Go for it and see how it works and we will all have learned something.