Ringing it.

So to make the roof of a yurt work, you need a compression ring in the middle, and a tension ring on the outside.

I made the inner compression ring first.  I had a 36" long piece of 1/4" thick steel on hand.  I knew I was going to skip a rafter over the door, so  I would have 13 rafters.  I did a little guessing and checking, and found 2.5" between rafters would be about correct. 

I marked it out...

 Marked every 1.25" because I did my math based on filling all the rafter slots..

Out came the angle grinder, and I cut every other space open to accept the pins from the rafters.

I figured trying to bend 1" of steel would be a little difficult, and cutting an inch deep wasn't going to happen with my old angle grinder wheel.  It had to be replaced....   I seem to go through angle grinder wheels roughly every six months.

Hah, you can see the cut off bit of the main wall.  I got to do some vague sort of metalwork.  A big vice, and a hammer.  The notches that were cut into the bar made bending the ring fairly easy.

The ring was then drilled, and bolted.  Well, we'll call it pinned.  I had to clean up the notches, because the act of bending them closed the slots a bit. 

I'd have pictures of the outer ring.. but making that was really dull.  I drug the wire out on the sidewalk, measured it with a tape measure, and put the cable clamps on it.  You'll see it in the next post.