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I have just bought a second hand Marechel Tuscone frame tent. Although the tent looks quite untidy and faded from the outside it is completly water proof and perfectly adequate for my family and I. We bought this tent at a very good price and have used it twice now and are very hapy with it, we would like to tidy it up a bit and continue to use it as long as we can. I would be grateful for any comments or information regarding this model of tent.

I have absolutely no information and although we have managed to put the tent up very well there are still some things that we are unsure off and instructions would be very useful. The bedroom that we have does not extend the full width of the tent and we are very interested in getting a larger inner tent  but wouldn't know where or how to go about this.

Any information, links or brochures on this tent shall be most appreciated.

Brian 

hi Brian, welcome to ukcs. i couldn't find any info about your tent but did find this

tent valeting service. maybe they can help? Good Luck.

Wow, that's a smashing tent Brian - I love the design of the bay window at the front

Exactly what do you want to 'tidy up' ? Does it need new rubber pegging points, new springs, or is it just a good clean & reproof you're thinking of?

Oh, by the way, welcome to the forum

Hi Jean

I was thinking of a good clean and reproof, it is water proof now but it could do with a reproof and a good clean. It's quite faded so something to brighten it up a bit would be good, any ideas would be appreciated. Also going to respring the poes, but have sourced springs and thats gonna be a winter project.

Main thing is the inner tent, theres five of us, me te wife and three kids, we do manage to fit into the inner tent comfortably now but next year the kids shall all be bigger and it maybe a little too cosy. The inner tent dosn't fit the full width of the tent so we wanted to find a larger inner tent to fit the full width of the tent, pherhaps two smaller inner tents.

Any information or ideas shall be greatly appreciated.

Brian

Hi Brian and welcome to the site. Perhaps Marechel can help in the matter of the inner tent and if you reproof the tent it should darken the canvas slightly. New guys and rubber pegging points always smarten a tent up cheaply and maybe some new curtains for those brilliant windows would help.

Carol

For cleaning the canvas you can use a mild detergent, but just to be on the safe side I used Graingers Canvas Cleaner on mine. It only cost about £4.75. It looks a very small bottle, but it was plenty to clean the whole of our Cabanon Elody.

Fabsil is the most popular waterproofer. It's not cheap though. You'd need the largest tin for your tent, and that will set you back around £21. Some people on this forum have said that Thompsons Brick Sealer is exactly the same as Fabsil, but much cheaper. However, I've never tried it cos I'd already used Fabsil on mine before I heard of this other stuff.

I don't think there is anything you can do about the fading. Back in the 70's you could buy coloured waterproofer which worked a treat to brighten up faded canvas, but I don't think anyone makes this now  

As Carol says, contact Marechal about new inner tents. If they can't supply them, or it just works out too expensive, wait till around October when second hand frame tents on ebay are selling at their lowest prices and buy a cheap one, whatever the condition of the main tent as long as the inner tents are good. Last autumn some of the older frame tents were selling for as low as £20 in fair condition

By the way you can wash inner tents to freshen them up. I washed ours in the bath, then hung them over the line to dry.