The Hexayurt is a shelter made from standard-sized sheets of 8' by 4' building material, with no waste. Versions made out of foil-laminated polyisocyanurate insulation board are popular at Burning Man.
Mitring the edges of the panels allows the yurt to fit together better, improving insulation, dust- and light-proofing. Doing so with hand tools is very tricky, until now.
3D printing this cutter and fitting a standard 18mm snap-off blade into the appropriate slot allows you to simply push the cutter over the edge of the board and cut the perfect angle.
Download the STL file for the measurement system you're using and slice it as appropriate for your printer. Print!
There are two sets of slots. One set will cut a 15° angle, the other 30°. Within each set there are slots for different thicknesses of board. Slide a snap-off blade into the appropriate slot and push it along the edge of the board to make a perfect cut.
For a "standard" 12' Hexayurt, you want the wall board 4' edges to all be at 30°, with the 8' edges left square. The hypotenuse of each roof triangle should be cut to 15° and the bottom edge to 30°. NOTE: this is per the folding hexayurt instructions on Appropedia, but I have not tested this first hand. If you have, could you please validate my instructions or send any corrections.
The source file format is .shape
, for the macOS procedural modeling prorgram ShapeScript. It's kind of like OpenSCAD (very) Lite. It's just a text file and should be self-explanatory. You can download ShapeScript for free from the macOS App Store and try out any modifications. I'll re-export the STLs and upload them here upon any meaningful change.
Suggestions and PRs are welcomed, especially from people who've printed one and tried it on various materials.