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Subject Topic: Got new tent-yippeee....how on earth do I get it up! Post Reply Post New Topic
11/6/2009 at 8:51am
 Location: None Entered
 Outfit: bear lake 4
View opg1's Profile View Profile   Reply to opg1 Reply   Quote opg1 Quote  
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Have invested in a Bear Lake 4 - thanks for all the advice on here certainly helped..its now arrived and am a bit daunted..can hardly lift the pole bag! hoping to take it for a trial this weekend has anyone got any hints/tips on putting it up? and taking it down - watched the Outwell video- which looks too easy... have had polyester tunnels before which were much lighter... there will be 2 of us.


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11/6/2009 at 9:40am
 Location: The Love Shack
 Outfit:  BearLake 6 and a hot water bottle.
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Joined: 20/9/2007

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Hi,
Well the first thing is to make it lighter is to zip off the groundsheet.
They are quite easy to zip on after the tent is erected.
If you have a footprint groundsheet put that down and lay your canvas out.
Give it a good shake to get the air of the inside,but make sure the front door is closed,this will make it easier to open and shut the door when erected(the BL front doors are noted for being quite hard to shut)
Then fit your rear set of poles and stand them up and put a guyrope on to hold in place.
Then work your way to the front doing the same with the other poles.
Then place a guy on the front,clip all the canvas to the poles and then fit the 2 external cross braces,then peg out the rest.

-------------
Sue & Phil
--------------------- I Love My AeroBed    


11/6/2009 at 9:43am
 Location: 
 Outfit: 
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If you have a tarp or footprint, lay that out first

Lay the canvas on top, ensuring all your doors are zipped up

Open up the poles then thread each one through the canvas - don't clip the pegs into them at this point

Put the clips into the front (or rear) of the tent first and raise this canvas up - peg the middle guy rope on the front pole

Then work on the next pole, clipping this then the next etc

Pull the canvas back into a reasonable shape as you go along

Worst bit is raising the front, rest is a doddle

Zip in your ground sheet and pull this onto shape before you start pegging anything.  Once this is flat peg the lot down, then just go round the tent and peg all the guy ropes, and adjust the tensioning straps along the bottom

Don't pull the front entrance too tight, doors can get a bit tight otherwise

I have done the 6 man BL on my own, it's not that bad!

 



11/6/2009 at 11:07am
 Location: None Entered
 Outfit: bear lake 4
View opg1's Profile View Profile   Reply to opg1 Reply   Quote opg1 Quote  
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thanks both of you....have printed off and put instructions with tent, yes have the footprint....Val I am very impressed you can do it yourself , would be really useful if I could ...will let you know how I get on


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11/6/2009 at 12:32pm
 Location: North East
 Outfit: Outwell Bear Lake 4
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Joined: 11/4/2009

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Hi opg1, we have a BL4 too,  as above we lay the footprint out, then lay the tent on top minus the ZIG, doors closed.

We then make up all the hoops and lie them to one side.

We then put all the hoops through the sleeves, working from front to back with the top of the hoop towards the front of the tent and the legs towards the back.

We then lift up the rear hoop and peg the centre back guy rope so it takes the weight of the tent with the top of the hoop slightly pointing towards the front of the tent and attache the clips to the hoop, we also put the ring and pin in at this stage.

We move forward as quickly as possible and lift up the next hoop clip it and ring and pin it and so on and so forth until all the hoops are erect and we then guy the front centre guy.

We then move to the back of the tent re-tighten the back centre guy, and shift the hoops one by one forward (from the back one to the front one) as need be to tighten the canvas and re tighten the front middle guy.

At this stage we zip the ZIG in.  Be careful on the corners, the zip can sometimes stick (because the plastic next to the zip can get caught.  If this is the case go outside of the tent and feed it through your fingers using your nail to seperate the plastic from the zip runner).

Once the ZIG is in make sure it is sitting square to ensure that it is not too tight especially towards the back as you will be hanging the bedroom pod from the hooks in the ZIG and these hooking points should not be too taut. You may hve to adjust your hoops, ring and pins. Make sure once you are happy with the ZIG you close the door back up.

Check the back of the flysheet canvas by pegging the pegging points to ensure that it covers your footprint.  If you have misjudged this, which is easy to do, we tended just to unpeg the footprint and pull it from the front or the back of the tent to its correct position.

We then slide through the stability side poles. Make sure when you slide them in the nodules on each of the connecting rods that stick out are pointing towards the tent as you slide the pole through so that they do not get caught on the mesh. 

We then peg out all the guys etc and then fit the canopy.

I think everyone has a method that works for them, hope this might help a bit.  It also obviously depends on the wind conditions when pitching as well and if it is windy then we obviously try and peg down to a certain degree as we go.

Katie



-------------
Every day's a Sunday!


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17/6/2009 at 10:18am
 Location: None Entered
 Outfit: bear lake 4
View opg1's Profile View Profile   Reply to opg1 Reply   Quote opg1 Quote  
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Katie and all, thanks for that worked a treat hard to say how long it took as we were taking it easy ....i love my tent, have now also found this......

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aN8SMhi1iXg&feature=channel_page

which i am going to try next time !



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