muttley9050

The canvas of a geodesic dome is quite complicated if you want it to be tight and fit snug, the more common way to cover them is just to use lengths of canvas,start at the bottom and continue up leaving a good overlap, ive seen massive domes covered in this way. Fleece or blankets can be laid over the frame first for insulation, then the canvas is simply tied to frame. The beauty of yurts and domes in my mind is the pure beauty of the frame, and secondly the fact that there totally self supporting, so can be erected on any flattish ground. A dome is a truly achievable self build tent and as such can be done very cheaply. They can even be covered with a large plastic type flysheet. When we build them we dont even peel the poles, just point the ends to fit the water pipe snugly and ensure any side branch stumps are flat to pole to avoid damaging canvas. Heres a picture of the tents we have permanently erected where i live, sometimes we have others two but these stay up most of the time. 1 6m tipi, 1 5m yurt and 1 large and 1 small canvas cabin. James

Looks nice rowan, i know you can get a small hakki processor for around £5000 too, but the problem i have is I only have a small tractor. 15hp pto would run it fine, but question if it could lift it. Im still trying to buy woodland at moment, so just forward planning at mo, my plan i think will be a hakki pilke eagle, which i will also fit engine to, and eventually get a hakki 25 carry, if i can find a big enough market to sell to etc. Thanks for your input, out of interest, do you know the uk dealer for that machine. James

Im quite lucky where i live, loads going on, we have a yurt building shelter, with a steam bender and all necessary formers etc, my mate uses it for the ones he sells,hes slightly concerned about where he'll get his coppice from with the ash die back. If i lived in a tent it would be a yurt. aewsome structures, easy to insulate, easy to join. Done a fair few yurt floors in my time too. One on the side of huge hill looked awesome when it was up. some other thoughts on practicalities of big tipis, a large tipi is really a two strong man lift, u also need a huge stepladder to fit a rain catcher. Dont under estimate the weight alone of the canvas, i cant carry one far and im pretty strong. If the canvas gets wet you aint moving it on your own, where are you gunna hang the canvas to dry when wet to stop it rotting, its huge, there hard to put up on muddy ground or even damp grass without the canvas turning green or brown and looking rubbish.Big tarps and lots of care needed. Reckon the largest easily manageable tipi for one strong man is 5.5m. Not trying to put you off, but there is in my opinion better options. I intend to build myself a yurt at some point soon, but wouldnt really know where to start with the canvas, but i know someone who does:thumbup1:

Yurts are my favourite too, but if he was shocked at the price of a tipi,didnt seem worth mentioning them!!

Easy to do on android. just get tubemate app and download away. Not available on market, have to download from browser.

Bell tents are cool too, but dont always have enough headroom for me. Geodesic domes also ace, easy to make out of hazel etc coppice and water pipe. canvas is simple, burners are able to be fitted to any real canvas tent.

Guy i live with makes and sells tipis.(worldtents.co.uk.) Heres my opinion, Majority of cost is in canvas, but if this is well looked after can last years. Sail maker will be able to make one,but its not that simple and different seams are required, my missus is a seamstress for his company. Most people assume there round but there not there a teardrop shape. This makes the pattern quite complicated. Poles are essentially peeled spruce, and for a big tipi can be 9m+long. Do a fair few tipi erections and decking floors with removable firepit in center for his company. Nice jobs. usually schools, Anyway tipi patterns are much more complicated than youd think, and use alotof canvas and a big room to work out pattern in. Im sure if you spoke to him he'd give you a price for canvas only and you supply your own poles and specify length. But remeber always have totake massive poles with you and is not super quick to erect. need tobe pretty strong to lift the lifting pole with all canvas attatched. My opinion is youd be better with a canvas cabin. Check his site for pics. U can have a stove, raised beds, storage under beds, flatpack design, easy to move on standard roofrack, and cosy. Ask ifyou want further details on making your own, much mmore achievable with canvas cabin if you have basic carpentry skills and seemstress with industrial machine to sew canvas,pattern is simple. Nice tents. Thats what id buy/make. Hope this helps. James P.s. far more common to have open fire in tipi than stove, pps. Tipis werent designed for this climate. and dont bode well in heavy rain without rain catchers and canvas lining.

I bet it was mate, probably coz you werent concerned in anyway about emptying your wallet and were free to be creative with waste. Like it alot and the old tin on top will be the reused icing on the cake. Just spent about £3000 on our shed pictured above, but we did need it to hold 100+ tonne(reckon now its built it holds 150,3 years supply), reckon your outlay was about 0.6% of ours, so fairplay.

Fit alot of kitchens and cheapest place by far to get worktop is ikea, pragel range 2460mmx 620mmx38mm £35. Pretty good stuff too comes with all ends finished and extra end strip for cuts. also do it in 1860 for £30 . Wish you luck on finding secondhand. My workbench top is chipboard flooring. had a load left over from big renovation but worktop is far more hardwearing. Need some non-slip mats for working on it though. Wouldnt use larch or cedar(says me with chipboard), elm would be great but a waste. Hope this helps. James

Nice looking pallet shed normandy, good to see it finished. Just a note on the felt, Looks, from what i can see, like breathable membrane. If it is this is, not u.v. stable so dont expect it to hold water out for much more than a season. James

:thumbup:Thanks Mate:thumbup:

Hi steve, i cant open the last page(6) of "am i selling myself short", and consequently my post, just keeps opening page 5. Just thought id let you know. Thx James

A few threads ive read here seem to compare wages with construction. Now im not in arb work,but consider myself a woodsman in the making. I trained as a bricklayer and after a carpenter, dislike the industry so getting out of it now. After a year of training to be a brickie i would not call myself a briclayer id call myself an improver and would probably lay less than half the bricks as the others on the team. I laboured for 3 years before starting training, so understood job well, and for first 2 years of apprenticeship i got to work 1.5 hours before everyone else so i could load out bricks, nock up muck etc, so i had time to learn. Iwas also always the last on site. And all this for £60 a day Self employed on cis(12 years ago) My wages went up slowly with my speed and skills, but speed and skills take time to learn, and we were in a massive building boom when i trained. F.w.i.w. i think ushould ask for a small rise but dont expect the earth, your young and learning, and in a few years youll be earning well. I would pay an improver now £60-70(they dont need saws and expensive ppe, maybe £150 a year on basic gear). So im guesing for you about 70-80. and remember you are an improver and not experienced enough to call yourself "a climber". Thx James

Some more sterling work there mate, im beginning to realize that i should keep things simple, when im in my workshop for a day or two i make one or two or half a lavish thing, and im thinking thats not the way forward. Two questions if you dont mind. Do you turn the bats green? if so any secrets to drying after. What sort or price range can you realistically achieve on the tealight holders? thx James

That is completely brilliant reminds me a lot of this, but in a completely different context. [ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k7x8wd36uJg]Chav Vs Wall and Loses "BIG TIME!!" (STUPID IDIOT) - YouTube[/ame]

Looks good to mefor the money, and i would expect you could acieve a reasonable reasale on it if it wasnt up to scratch. If you do decide to go for it, i would appreciate a review, as ill be interested my self in a few months. Thanks James

Agreed, had a look at the palax55 now aswell, looks good but only 200mm cut in one pass. others do 270mm. U can get a palax with an engine though which is appealing but its £3000+vat. Pretty sure im gunna get the eagle and mount an engine on it myself, got a couple in the shed that would run it i think. Thanks for your input,much appreciated James

Dead mans shoes tideland mysterious skin alone in the wilderness(my favourite docu, and a must see for any real woodsman, see what can be done with no chainsaw, honestly please watch it.) once were warriors but i could watc alone in the wilderness over and over again.

Thanks Chris, i prefer the look of the eagle too, and i think the price difference swings it. Just wondering really if you got more for your money with the japa but obviously not. Thanks again James

i did it, suited me ok, kids are at school now and ive just had a knee op, so im a stay at home dad with the kidsout all day.best of both worlds:thumbup:

Thats sweet, innovative use of a wm.

Hi guys, looking at buying a saw bench splitter combo, have priced the two above models hakki:£1660 delivered+vat, japa100: £2130+delivery+vat. So my question is, which is better, i prefer look of hakki and its a lot cheaper. Is there any other saw/splitter combos im missing? Advice much appreciated, Thanks James

Hate to admit it but it was bought from the devil. 40% Windbreak Netting Greenhouse Shade 1m x 5m: Amazon.co.uk: Garden & Outdoors Its great and comes with eyelets in edges already. We just sewed it together with fencing straining wire and stapled to posts. Been up around 6 months and think it will last well. Very strong and cheap

Hey catweazel, think you misunderstood the system, the 3 1000l tanks are purely for dhw. Not sure why they fitted two expansions to each tank, just how it was designed. If you look at the first picture you can see a large grey 5000L tank for the space heating, this has its own 500L(i think) expansion(not shown in photo) if were burning logs the water from the large tank heats the 3 1000Ltanks via heat exchange. Twin coil: 1 for solar one for log burner. Space heating comes from tank underground into house and through heat exchanger in basement into rads. we too have no temp control at present(we will be fitting trvs when we get round to it, but the way we use boiler we wont be overheating. ITS all manually fed with logs. and we monitor heat manually, such a big old house(see pic) we would never get it roasting anyway. Was never the objective. Comfortable was what we were after. Could of had bigger boiler,burn more wood etc, but didnt want too. Before this system we only had wood burners. System was more about getting corridors and landings commfortable too and not having our older residents carrying logs to the third floor to heat there rooms. Web address to follow. James P.s. the only manual switching is between gas and log boiler for dhw.

The dhw tanks are seperate volumes so you heat them in order, sun gets first up to temp and then starts next one ,if its out long enough, and you use tanks in order too, basically english sun is unreliable so capture as much heat as you can whilst its out, and use when its not, it also means that if theres no sun you can just heat up 1000L with the gas or p.v.powered immersion not the whole 3000l, hence each tank is seperate and needs its own expansion. I must admit theres aspects of the system im still getting me head round, this being our second winter using it. The system was designed by a company called british eco, i think they did a good job, but thats all they did a good job in. They subbed installation to another company, they got it done inthe end, but start to finish was 10months. I dug the service trenches from the stables(new boiler room) to the house myself to save money, did it over a week, lots of trenches and the worst dig ive ever done for the amount ofservices and unknown water pits in the way. They were meant to come lay the pipe the following week. They didnt come for 2months. needless to say trenches werent trenches by then! I see your point on inhibitor, maybe just covering all bases. Do you guys pump straight into your rads or do you heat exchange? U should now, the house it heats is massive 27occupants and one ancient c/h system all plumbed in steel with big old cast column rads, so we heat exchange coz theres no way we were power flushing. Regards costings, 65k including solar thermal and connection to a secondary building which is used part time(we rent it to groups, run courses from there etc)This means loads of buried insulated pipes and they cost loads. We were able to secure 35k funding but we had to jump through some massive hoops, the most interesting of which is allowing local schools to use as energy project. One ofthe techie guys i live with designed and built hardware and software connected to all our renewables(solar thermal,p.v,boiler) and internet, it gives instant readouts of energy produced, historical figures, and basic conversions to units of energy kids understand like miles driven in average car, light bulb hours, cups of tea u could make etc. This gets sent to 2 touch screen units in our house and to web address anybody(like theschool kids) can access. Its really neat(and way beyond me). School havent done a project yet but hoping they will this year. Its great to be able to see on a screen exactly how much energy you produce and direct difference between cloudy/sunny day,softwood/hardwood. Cant remember what web address is right now, but will post soyou can look if interested. Posted some pics of our new shed here:http://arbtalk.co.uk/forum/firewood-forum/24086-show-me-your-firewood-storage-shed-rack-please-4.html Anyway time for bed, enjoying this thread. Sorry if i waffled.