I first encountered the Hexayurt in the Summer 2009 at the Small is… festival and with it the oh so strange individual known as Vinay Gupta. I joke that Vinay and I got talking only because I knew how to use a cordless drill driver. For some reason the battery charger required people to press odd buttons to activate it which no one realised until I plodded along and joined the workshop. However, the real headache was that those taking part in the workshop had a clear lack of experience with the tool. Finally a lecture was taking place and our team of 8ish shrank to only Vinay and I. After a while Vinay let out one of his creepy laughs. When I asked him what was he laughing at he said he said he thinks it going faster now that it was only the two of us. Little did he know I only stuck around since I needed a place to sleep but there began a friendship I might in retrospect decide would have best been avoided given the fullness of time.

There was next to no contact until met him again the next year and once again I helped him in the struggling construction. Over the next year I was introduced to some of his other work.

Then the day before the dark mountain festival I received an email urging me to attend. I arrived at a half built Hexayurt and Ray, a great guy to work with, mostly because he’s Irish. The two of us, with the assistance of Tom at times, built the confounded H13 build. A difficult construction to envisage, especially if you have never even seen so much as a napkin sketch of one. We managed to do it in good time. Flickr time line of the build that some mysterious individual took.

So there it is a grand total of three hexayurt encountered and a grand total of three “saved” (I’m sure they would have worked but I’d just like to claim credit). I’m sure this blasted hut and inventor will feature several more times in my life.

That said this Makita Impact Driver is an amazing piece of kit and well worth the money. Over 100 screws used and only one that we had to discard after deconstruction. Never use it with a drill bit though.