Here's a brief glimpse of the building of the spire for the top of the Concentric Yurt.
We needed to get the spire up on the Concentric, because the big hole in the roof was difficult to keep covered. This is the hole that's over five feet in diameter. A lot of rain could (and, unfortunately, did) find its way through this opening.
Because the spire was to be quite large, the Upper Yurt roof was so high, and the slope so steep, Jack built the spire on the ground. He started by assembling the sixteen pieces forming the base of the spire. This ring of the spire will rest on the top ring beam of the Concentric roof - at the very top.

Jack then cut out the eight (there's an extra one - just in case) spire frame pieces.

The resulting vertical height of the spire is nearly five feet.

Jack assembled the spire outside on a picnic table. Here's the spire covered with "ice and water," ready for shingling.

These are the shingles I used on the spire. We decided it was important that the spires not appear "clunky." To achieve a "lighter" look, we decided to reduce the shingle reveal from five and one half inches to three inches. To accomplish this, we trimmed eight inches off the the thick end of the eighteen inch cedar shingles.


Suddenly the number of shingles used per square increased by nearly two times.

It's rather difficult to see here, but on each of the eight sides of the spire, the shingles needed to overlap one another to prevent leakage as well as to provide an even surface for the edge caps which were to be installed later. The shingles were cut at the angle required by the corner, one overlapped the other, and each shingle - the one overlapped and the one overlapping - needed to be trimmed with a chisel.

I was most pleased to discover that I had a rather complete set of chisels that had been my paternal grandfather's. They are cast steel from a manufacturer named W. Butcher. I'm most certain that these chisels had not been used since the early 60s. They were perfectly sharp and made the work much easier.

The overlapping of the shingles is a bit clearer here.
The Concentric spire before the edge caps.

The edge caps are on; the copper cap is in place; and the finial with the four inch ball is mounted on the top.

The spire is ready to be installed on top of the Concentric Yurt.

Next Posting
Posted on Oct 5, 2006

 

-Stanley