Beacon here- I may be the third lost Hexacomb pioneer you are talking about Thomas. I worked with Plague (forget his off-playa name) to cut the 4'x8' sheets down to 4'x4' sheets because I was forced to strap them to the top of a rented economy car to get them up I-80 and couple hundred clicks to Grass Valley. I was part of the order from Tharco in WA.
I would say the thermal performance is significantly better than a tent. At night with two people on a "car-camping" air mattress our noses never got cold. As for keeping it cool during the day, we were shaded until about 9am, and got roasted out by 11am. This could have been improved by increasing the reflectivity of the panels. We only had time to paint the four roof panels white. Painting the east and west sides would have been nice too. I personally think having silver structures is a little too 'Buck Rogers' for my taste, and taping or gluing anything can be less -than-practical for on-playa or off-playa application. Instead I simply used white exterior latex house paint. The albedo (reflectivity) difference between white house paint and mylar is not all that significant, and the panels were then effectively waterproof enough for the vast majority of rain conditions found in the Black Rock Desert. If you go this route, I would recommend a sprayer to get a nice thin layer, since the cardboard soaks up paint, and I would lightly clamp or weight the corners, as they have a tendency to warp the whole panel a bit as the paint dries. They did press back flat just fine in transport though. The other nice thing about painted-white walls is that you can include some subtle designs without disrupting the reflectivity too much. As for the structure of the cube, it was pretty bomb-proof. I think we only anchored it at two points, which was sufficient. Although, we were surrounded by other structures which decreased the direct and sustained wind forces. As mentioned before I created a frame using 1"x2" pieces of wood, which I'm planning on ditching this year for a (hopefully) simpler idea that I think Vinay employed in the plywood hexayurt build video in the community in London posted here somewhere. The idea is that plywood (and hexacomb) have pretty good structural integrity, especially when securely attached to one another in Hexayurt or cube fashion. The idea is to cut a (hopefully recycled, found, or scrap) piece of 2"x12" or 2"x10" wood into corner brackets. In the case of the Hexayurt the key angle is 120deg, in the case of my cube it will simply be a series of right triangles with the sides that will be flush against the Hexacomb being 10 or 12 inches, depending on what I use. I will pre-drill bolt holes perpendicular to these flush sides (centering the 1/2" drill hole in the 2" dimension of the wood). They essentially act the same as metal L brackets, but are much easier to find salvaged, and once installed give you eight to twelve interior corner shelves to place lights, goggles, gear, hooks, drinks, snacks etc. Instead of taping the corners for dust protection, I plan to sandwich some thick fabric in as I bolt the walls together. We'll see how that goes. Since I was forced to cut my panels down from 8'x8' I will also have the issue of attaching panels in the very center of each wall, and the ceiling. For this I plan to use approximately 8" wide strips of plywood, bolted through the hexacomb as well with large surface area washers, or even washers with small pieces of plywood directly against the hexacomb. I've found that bolts don't pull through the hexacomb because the majority of the lateral force is handled by the friction of the large surface area washers. The main positives I see with my techniques outlined here: All parts are reusable and cheap (except the hexacomb). No tape to hunt down, mess with in dusty conditions, or throw away at the end. The wood pieces that hold the structure together should be accessible in construction dumpsters or around the house. All of the materials are organically based, and could be either chipped and composted at the end of life, or burned for energy. One future idea that I've been playing with for either a cube style or a Hexayurt style is to create SIPs (structurally insulated panels) by sandwiching one inch thick sheets of the cheaper rigid foam insulation between two sheets of the thinest plywood or paneling out there, then constructing using the bracket technique outlined here and in the London video Vinay posted within the last year. That's all for now. I broke my leg skiing last week, so I won't be able to do any actual building or photographing. However, maybe I'll teach myself sketch-up while I'm bed-ridden. Beacon On Tue, Feb 16, 2010 at 2:07 AM, Thomas Tempelmann <[email protected]>wrote: > On Thu, Feb 11, 2010 at 15:42, Anne <[email protected]> wrote: > > > > We built two hexacomb hexayurts on the playa last year. I tracked > > down a west coast distributor of hexacomb cardboard out of Algona, WA > > called Tharco and had 38 4'x8' sheets shipped to southern California. > > I posted the contact info in the "cardboard" thread here in the google > > group last year > > I was one of those getting together with two others, ordering a batch > to the SF Bay Area. > > Two of us worked together to cut our boards to size and at angles. We > used spray glue to attach emergency blankets to the roofs. That worked > well until heavy and constant winds started picking under the seams, > and in the end I had a lot of shread flying around from the ripped > blankets. That was partly due to the fact that I had tried to be > economical with the expensive spray paint, applying the glue in > separated rows, so that there were pockets of up to a feet apart that > had no glue - and if the wind got into one of those it was ripping > open eventually. > > With a better (broader) application of glue, and with tape over the > seams, however, I think the emergency blankets work well. > > BTW, setting up the yurts was a pain when there was wind (which we had > plenty last year at BM). > > But once secured, even my 8' tall stretch yurt made of hexacomb held > up perfectly at BM 09. And that one is probably the least stable of > them all, due to its broard 8x6 sides. > > So, hexacomb is a great material for this, yet a bit expensive, hard > to get and eager to fly away if not secured :) > > Our 3rd partner in the order wanted to go a different route about heat > insulation, but I lost track of his project, and even of his name. > Hello? > > -- > Thomas Tempelmann, http://www.tempel.org/ > > -- > 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]<hexayurt%[email protected]> > . > For more options, visit this group at > http://groups.google.com/group/hexayurt?hl=en. > > -- 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]. 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