Tent poles for period style tents?

[waturz]

Hello everyone,

I bought a 9X11X7' bell back wedge tent about a year ago and have yet to spend a night in it! I'm working on changing that, but have a few questions about tent poles. I've set it up several times using 2X2's for the uprights and a 2X4 for a ridge pole. I've drilled holes in the ends of the 2X2's and through the 2X4 for a dowel to hold the three poles together.

My question is, what are other folks using for poles for their tents? Currently I'm going to have to haul a 11 foot pole and two 7 foot poles wherever I go to use this tent. Although that probably seems like nothing to the folks carrying around tipi poles its still a hassle. I would like any suggestions folks may have on some sort of take down or more compact pole system! I thought about a sectioned metal pipe style pole, but its heavy and way out of the period correct way of thinking (as if the cut lumber I'm currently using is correct!) along with being a probable lightning hazard to the tent occupants.

Any suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks for a great board!

 

[silverfox]

waturz: You will probably get several more way to do this. I just wish I could draw you a picture but can't. Several of the guys down here use stained 2X2s like you are but the ridgepole is cut in half and turned back about a foot to slip fit in a piece of thin wall tubing about 2 ft. long. This leaves a shoulder to stop the pole at the right length. Now you have a 5 1/2' ridge pole and a 2' piece of tubing. You can do the same with the other poles and corresponding size tubing. Makes transporting much easier. I have seen a ridgepole done in three sections and it seems to work well also even though it spans 20' plus. Just don't get the fit to loose and paint the tubing to match the stain on the wood. You may change the length of the tubing to fit the length of the poles. Verticals can be shorter than the horizontals. Now lets see what others can offer.
Fox :thumbsup:

 

I have two of those tents and I use 1 1/2" x 2' angle iron as a joining piece for the 2x2 ridgepole. It is perminantly fixed to one side and the other uses simple bolts with wing nuts for connection. This does not require turning round or any machinery other than a hacksaw and drill.

I have also used 2x4 ridge poles that were spliced/overlapped 2 feet at the mid point and bolted together.

I have also seen poles that were hinged with standard door hinges but they were not very stable when set up.


I got the ridgepole and both 7' uprights into a Chevy Chevette once and I camped out of a Baretta for two years.

I can get the entire 9' ridgepole in my wife's Escort wagon front to back with one end under the dash!

You know you are a reenactor when you select vehicles based on their ability to transport your camp!

:front:

Proud owner of a two station wagons/two pickups and a CRV

 

Delayed brain f@rt !

No one will see the inside ridge pole anyway and I have never had a ridgepole inspection in all of my years of reenacting!

Go to Home Depot or Lowes and check in the fence department. They have aluminum thin wall top fence rail for chain link fences. These thin wall pipes come in various lengths and have one end reduced in diameter to slide into the other.

Buy the proper size tubing to build your 11' pole spliced in the middle. Cut the pipe and drill your holes. Wrap and pad the ends of the tube with duct tape so tey will not cut your tent.

If you are not camping with a strict group you might do the same thing with the uprights and paint them to blend in.

I will guarentee that you will draw static over the spliced uprights at most camps.
:front:

 

[waturz]

Thank you for the replies. I had originally thought about attaching two halves of the ridge pole together with thin iron plates, but the channel iron method sounds much more stable. I've got a buddy with a wood lathe that could probably turn down the ends of the halves if I wanted to go the sleeved route.

Ghost, your comments on vehicles are pretty humorous! I have always had a pick-up, but recently traded for a Jeep. I never realised how much I depended upon the bed of the pick-up before I got this vehicle! I've got my first rendezvous coming up in June and can imagine a scene out of grapes of wrath trying to get all my gear up there! Poles hanging out windows or strapped to the top, boxes strapped to the hood, etc.

Having two piece or more 2X2's will also alleviate the other problem I've had.... finding a straight piece of 8' 2X2.

Thanks again for the ideas! Maybe I'll travel with the tent after all!

 

Did I mention the two cargo trailers?

At least with trailers you can leave the basic camp loaded and just restock with food and clean clothes.

Have no fear, most of us look like a gipsey camp looking for a place to happen half the time anyway!

:front:

 

[RJR]

Wturz, what I use is steel you can get at any scrap yard. I use 2X2 square thin wall tube for my up rights and 2X4 thin wall tube for my ridge pole and fly. Just mark down how far you need it to go in and shave down the wood till it fits in, drill your holes and slide a bolt through. I have my poles stained real dark and I went so far as to brown the steel. Don't forget to file the edges of the steel round so it doesn't cut your tent. Of course after I went through all that I went out and bought a cargo trailer with a ladder rack on top. Now I have one piece poles again. Good luck and enjoy your first 'vous. :front:

 

[No Powder]

Remember metal draws lighting. I know, all the modern tents have metal poles, but at one rendezvous we had a gent who had a one pole lodge and he used a metal pole. A storm moved over camp and lighting hit his lodge. Luckily he was visiting another camp a ways a way from his own and did not get hurt. The camps closest to his did get the tingle and the scare. We did give him the trophy for five starting, and it is a great camp story since no one get hurt. :m2c:
No Powder

 

[waturz]

Having survived two near misses with lightning in the past, this was a big concern of mine also! When I ran my idea of small diameter iron pipe poles by a buddy of mine that was his first concern too. The Rendezvous I'll be trying to attend is in Raton, New Mexico and there seems to be almost daily afternoon showers up there in the summer months.

I would think that having a small metal sleeve or metal joint would be less condusive to attracting lightning than having a metal pole from the ground up. However, I'm a believer that when your time is up, its up! I could worry to death about having non lightning conductive tent poles and then get nuked by lightning while sitting on the crapper! Thanks again for all the ideas, lightning or rain period is not something we typically have to worry about here in the Texas Panhandle in the summer months, but you get out of your element and thats where you could make a mistake.

 

[Kenney Moore]

Howdy,
We use the sleeve idea on our wall tent ridge pole. That way you do not have to worry about loosing the nuts and bolts. If you decide on this route, be sure to allow for the wood to swell on the ends that slide into the sleeve, because even if painted or stained thw wood my swell in damp conditions. When we made our sleeve, we welded a loop on the bottom of the sleeve so we can hang a candle lantern on an 'S' hook when we are in the tent. The sleeve was then powder coated so the possibility of rusting on the tent was done away with. We used true measure 2" X 3" poplar for the ridge and I used a plane to round over the top edge of the ridge. Our uprights are poplar also true measure 2" X 2" with tapered corners cut on a jointer. Poplar is light, but strong and is plentyful here in the East. I don't know what the best wood in your area would be. Hope this helps.

 

[Bear Rider]

The Rendezvous I'll be trying to attend is in Raton, New Mexico and there seems to be almost daily afternoon showers up there in the summer months.

I lived in New Mexico for 9 years, and IIRC, those are not showers. Those are THUNDERSTORMS.

 

[waturz]

I lived in New Mexico for 9 years, and IIRC, those are not showers. Those are THUNDERSTORMS.

Your probably right although my view of weather extremes is somewhat tainted by the weather here in the Texas Panhandle. I had mowed the grass in our yard 5 times (about 5 weeks time) prior to our getting 4 inches of snow last Monday! We had temperatures near 90 yesterday (a week later) with tornados and thunderstorms!

I'm reading a book right now titled "The Santa Fe Trail - Its History, Legends, and Lore by David Dary, and find it interesting how the early travelers of the trail generally did not look very favorably upon traveling through the Panhandle region of Texas and Oklahoma. With a nice roof over our head its easy to forget the extremes our ancestors had to cope with on a daily basis.