Erections. Really.. getting wood to stand up!

Well, not getting wood.  But getting wood to stand on it's own.  Tonight, at 8:15pm, the 27th of may, my yurt stood on it's own.

But first, rafters.  The rafters needed to be notched, and trimmed.  The math said they had to be 6'4" long, so they would rise 2' above the walls.

 I bought 7' lengths of wood to turn into rafters.  I'm not surprised I ended up with 8' leftovers. 

At some point, I'll post pictures of the notches.  The notching process was easy.  Since the center ring is 12", I measured 6" in from the end of each rafter and marked out at 3/8" wide slot.  I cut 1 blade depth deep on each line with my sawsall, and knocked out the bit of wood between the cuts. 

The pins that go into the ring at the center are just screws.  Normal 1.5" wood screws.  Again, I"ll get pictures later.

So for the money shot.  Here is the yurt, standing on it's own.  You can see the metal cable I used for the tension band.   I bought 1.5" long screws for the top of the wall just to have the excess length sticking out for the cable to sit on. 

 Next step, is making a shell for it.