A tent from a tarp.....

[Cinead]

Mae Govannen!

I thought I would share a great way that I use to set up a tarp....into a tent...

My tarp is 8' wide and 8' long...this set up makes a tent 8' long 5' wide and 4' tall....and no wasted floor space.....

http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b35/S ... 1975/0.jpg

[Greg]

I LOVE it!

I'm totally adopting this for longer-term base camp outings, when a bedroll isn't enough. Great idea! Thanks for sharing!

I guess this means I should probably re-think making a short walking spear...could easily use a spear for the tent pole.

[Eric C]

Good looking set up there. I like it!

[Cinead]

All you need it a ridge pole.....if you add a loop to the center of the tarp...you can use a length of rope for the "pole".....it is what I do...

Leave no trace....by having to cut a pole...

[Pwyll]

Greetings, all,

Excellent idea, Stonedog, espeically without using a pole. Years ago, when doing some ops with a Norwegian Jaeger company, they used tents put together from diamond shaped shelter halves. And they preferred to use no poles, just tying them up to trees (when available). They made these odd sort of dome shapes...

Anyway, not having to deal with poles was a good thing. Particularly when you had several people sharing the same tent.

[Greg]

Tying it to a tree? You'd think something so simple would've occurred to me already. Heavens to betsy, I'm losing it.

And with that, I'm officially hunting down some canvas for one of these this weekend. I suppose I should get on the ball and make some more rope...I'm running a wee bit short on my hand-spun stuff.

[Sam]

What do you make your rope out of Greg?

I really like this idea, it would be great for privacy for the ladies too.
Can we get a pic of someone with one of these set up please?

[Greg]

I buy large (usually 200-300') spools of jute twine (same stuff people used to tie up packages for mailing in brown paper and the like) and twist 3-7 strands together, depending on what kind of rope I'm needing. For heavier duty rope, that I could trust to say, lift ME, I use 7 strands. For cord around camp for hanging my food up in a tree away from bears and the like, I run 3-5.

I have a pair of stakes I've made that I run the twine between, and a crank on one end to twist the bundle while a slotted paddle on the other end compacts the twists and makes them permanent. If you need some, let me know (that goes for everyone...I can't make it free, but it'd only be like a buck per ten feet plus shipping, depending on the number of strands you'd want.)

As for a pic of the setup...I'm gonna take one of my family's blue all-purpose tarps out back tomorrow morning and set one up to get an idea of scale and see if there are any alterations I want to make before I invest in some canvas. Might even sleep out under it. I'll take some pics.

[KerryTracker]

Greg,

When you make your jute rope, do you reverse wrap it? How do you keep it from unraveling?

[Greg]

When you make your jute rope, do you reverse wrap it? How do you keep it from unraveling?

It sits overnight in the form tensed, and through that and its naturally somewhat abrasive nature, it holds itself together. I whip the ends with waxed hemp to keep them from fraying.

[Peter Remling]

Hey Greg, Any way you could do a series of pics showing your set up and how it works, It sounds very interesting.

[Greg]

As soon as I'm capable to, yes. I can't find my USB card reader, so transferring pics from camera to computer is a bit of a challenge right now.

[Sam]

Did you ever make this Greg?

[Greg]

I did it with a vinyl tarp in my backyard back home in LA a few times with success, but I haven't gotten around to getting a big enough canvas yet.

[Eledhwen]

Outstanding, Stonedog. Thanks!

Siani