After all the discussion of how messy and hard it is to cut RMax, I was pleasantly surprised yesterday when I easily cut some with a jig saw. Not as straight as a table saw, but pretty nice just the same. I just cut them in my driveway. After each panel I vacumed up the dust with a shop vac, just like any other sawing operation. No big deal.
I've only done the edges of the walls, no diagonals yet. I'm sure those will be tougher, mostly in how to support them. To cut 30 degree edges: Put the panel down with all the RMax logos up. That's the inside of your yurt. Mark a straight line 5/8 of an inch in from both short sides and one long side. Set your jigsaw to 30 degrees. I used a Riobi oscillating jigsaw, but I suspect any jigsaw with an adjustable cut angle would work fine. Cut along the lines. I used a fairly coarse blade and it still produced a smooth cut. The only problem I had was that the saw shoe on the bottom would tend to bind on the panel. If you find that the saw resists moving forward, try lifting up a bit to see if it just sticking to the panel. My plan is to build an eight foot hexayurt in 3 sections, 2 roof sections and 1 wall stack. This way the walls all fold into a 4 x8 x 6 inch stack and the 2 roof sections that fold into 2 triangles that together form anothe 6 inch 4 x 8 stack. I'm hoping to make simple canvas hinges 6 inches wide on alternating sides of each stack, so they fold. I'm hoping liquid nails will hold the swath of cloth in place. I saw a tutorial on building a full folding yurt that used "k hinges",but those are pretty complicated. I'm hoping a simple cloth swatch glued in place will work. I've got lots of 6 inch tape too, so if things seem shaky I can reinforce as necessary. My plan on the playa is to unfold the 2 roof section and tape them to each other to make the roof. Then unfold the walls and tape the last edge together. Then plop on the roof, jiggle things around, and tape around the roof to walls seem. Then the "up and over" anchors. JR On Jul 22, 8:56 pm, Joshua Keroes <[email protected]> wrote: > On Thu, Jul 22, 2010 at 1:39 PM, wanda <[email protected]> wrote: > > - folding designs are not great for bman because the tape attachments > > do not have the same wind resistance (?) > > I don't follow but I think this similar topics have been brought up a few > times this past month alone. Try searching the > archives?http://groups.google.com/group/hexayurt > > > - how necessary is an exhaust fan for the table saw angle-cutting? > > I think all table saw exhaust ports are compatible with shop vacs. If you > have/can borrow one, just hook it up. Noisy but effective. > > > is there any other way to cut those angles? > > I used a hand-held circular saw, four carefully positioned saw horses, a > long straightedge, and some clamps. Three things to keep in mind when using > a circular saw: > > 1. Take some time to find the correct saw offset that goes right down the > middle of the board. Ours was something like 4.85 inches off the median. > Running the saw's sled against a straightedge kept all the cuts smooth. > > 2. Make sure the halves are well supported when you near the end of the cut. > > 3. Keep that saw sled flat. If the board starts to bow in the middle of the > cut, stop and adjust the supports. > > > i have a handful of friends building hexayurts as well who might be > > into it. > > Work party! Building lots of Hexayurts with lots of people is better than > individual people building individual hexayurts. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "hexayurt" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/hexayurt?hl=en.
