Someone tell me if there is an easier way to thread and remove shock corded tent poles through tent sleeves? everytime I put them through they get snagged so I have to keep finding the snag and feeding it through, same when removing them, they keep snagging and coming apart in the sleeves, very time consuming! someone please tell me a trick of the trade to solve this prob please
Not really other than always push the poles through whether you are putting the tent up or down. Never try to pull the poles out when taking the tent down.
Gary Cross
I seem to recall a suggestion somewhere that you put an old nylon stocking over the pole before you insert it into the sleeve. Then you take it out when it gets to the other end. It has to be the slippery nylon, though, not the rougher kind. It just helps to ease the pole through the fabric of the sleeve. There was also the suggestion of putting a small plastic bag over the pole before insertion, or blu-tacking a cap off a marker pen over the end of the pole. It seems most of the snagging is caused by the rough edge of the pole, and if this can be eliminated it goes through very smoothly.
I heard a tip where you take the cover from a chapstick and put it over the end of the pole before inserting into the sleeve. I have not tried it yet but I can see how it (or a stocking or any other type of slippy cover or rounded end cover) would help.
I have the flexible poles marked with a bit of red insulation tape so I know which end is the 'leading edge'. I push the poles in towards the leading edge and when taking the tent down I push them from the same side right through rather that pulling them.
It depends on the tent too. I have an Icarus that has generous pole sleeves with no obstruction such as a guy tied through it. But the extension I have for it does have some guys tied through the pole sleeves and so it's much harder to push the poles through without them becoming obstructed, cue bad language from me.
Another point here is if you have a tent with short pole sleeves, I think the new Coleman range has that, then it will be easier to put them through. You probably need flexible poles with an angle on them to make a straight sided tent, rather than a tent with a curved hoop. Hope that makes sense...off to google De Gama or something like that....
No it's the Coleman Galileo that has the flexible poles and short pole sleeve. The Coleman De Gama has really short sleeves but then it has steel (or metal of some sort) poles.
I like the chapstick cover idea very much, will see if that does the trick, I have very long tent poles as I have a Sunncamp Mercury 400 and only 2 poles for the whole tent, seemed a good idea at the time lol http://www.sunncamp.co.uk/products/show/150
I always pull the tent rather than push the pole. I have found over the years and several tent that this works best. There is non strain put on thr poles so they done come part or get snagged.