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I was at a camp this week where there were loads of bell tents and I went round quizzing owners as my friend is shopping for one.  We found a couple from Obelink and they were **identical** to those from www.belltent.co.uk - to the extent that two were pitched side by side and you could see they were the same.  The canny owner of the Obelink one had done her homework and bought an inner bedroom from belltent.co.uk, which fitted perfectly.  Looking at the SoulPad brand, they too seem to be almost identical, except that the SoulPad tent I saw had eyelets in the groundsheet and mudflaps that were supposed to match, but actually were a few inches away from where they needed to meet, and I thought the tent was being put under strain having the two pegged together.  I really don't think you need to peg the groundsheet down once there's gear in the tent anyway.

I have a traditional bell tent with no porch which has Dutch lacing going most of the way up towards the central pole, and I have never had a problem with this leaking, but two other people with similar-design tents had.  Also, my tent is traditional heavy-duty canvas, 400gsm, whereas the Obelink/Belltent/SoulPad ones are a lightweight 285gsm.  I notice that some of the lightweight belltent companies say the fabric is like new jeans, but a friend said they are more like Chinos. The heavyweight canvas is thicker than jeans. I wonder how much difference it will make longer-term; certainly the lightweight ones flapped in the breeze more than mine, but they are lighter and cheaper so maybe it's a good compromise.  However, I only cart mine from the car, so the weight doesn't make a difference.

Here's a photo of my heavyweight canvas traditional bell tent next to a 5m one from SoulPad:

Hope this is useful to someone!

Quote: Originally posted by Flapper on 19/7/2009

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Is your tent 4m diameter and is that your family? :)

We have a 4m Obelink tent and I'm worried it's going to be a bit of a squeeze for 2 adults & 2 kids. May have to bring a small additional tent for gear. What do you think?
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Hi Flapper.  The tent is a 13'one - I think that's 4m, and yes, that's part of my family; I go camping with my 5 kids aged 2-11.  Hubby doesn't do camping.  We have no problem with sleeping space; I take 6 mats - some sun lounger cushions and some thermarest-style copies - and at night they're spread round the central part, 3 lots of 2, with our bags etc.. round the edge of the circle (where they help to keep draughts out as my particular luddite tent doesn't have much in the way of mudflaps, just a strip of hessian. ) .  It would sleep 6 adults OK, and it's lovely and cosy.  This despite the fact that I can't do my door up fully at the moment due to a missing hook. 

In the daytime the mats are piled up 2-high as 3 seats round the edge, with bags behind them filling in to the edge of the circle and nice throws over them.  It's nice for sitting around and there's room to play cards or Jenga and read, but it gets a bit much when 3 boys are rolling round on the floor fighting ;-)  The trouble arises when it's too rainy to kick them out.  I think it would be nice to have a little tent to kick them out into; the trouble is that lots of nylon pup tents don't stand up too well to boys fighting in them.  We had a little pop-up but that was shredded by a sharp stick. One of my friends bought a genuine WWII army pup tent from eBay for a few quid and that might be a more hard-wearing option.  But given our family size my preference would be for another bell tent as living space, as it's such a good combination of speed to pitch and a nice feel inside. 

I can really see the benefit of all the options, which doesn't help decision-making.  Sewn-in groundsheet would be a breeze to pitch but you then have the problem of packing the tent up without being able to separate out a damp groundsheet, so you'd have to clean and dry that before you could put the tent away.  The SoulPad variety with separate groundsheet seemed draft-proof despite the issue with the eyelets, and all the Obelink/Belltent tents also seemed to be very well 'grounded' - I don't think a sewn-in groundsheet would add much in terms of warmth, although I may be wrong. Of course, all the companies talk about brailing up the sides in hot weather, but most of the bell tent owners I spoke to said that they hadn't actually rolled the sides up as much as they thought they would - I did a couple of times, but if you are storing your stuff round the edges then you do have to allow time to tidy up afterwards and to 'put the tent to bed' at night.  My friend with the SoulPad found it quite hard to undo her sides when she wanted to let them down afterwards, so be careful how you tie up.

What else?  One benefit of my 'luddite' tent is that the guys are just made of rope, threaded through eyelets and then sort of giant wooden beads (I expect there's a technical term!) and then knotted.  If one breaks, you could replace it with any bit of string salvaged from a hedgerow.  Ditto the loops where the tent meets the ground.  On the other hand, if a guy comes away from its fixing on an Obelink/SoulPad etc, you will need to get your needle out.  Also their guys are thin nylon cord, which doesn't look as nice.  But on the other hand, that's a trade-off I'd be happy to make to get a spacious tent which was easy to draftproof, because mine does take 'well-ventilated' to extremes.  Actually, this may seem obvious but just in case... if anyone else has trouble doing up their tent door at night, you can go round and slacken off all the guy ropes and then do the door up.  Whatever you do, don't force it or you'll knacker your zip.  This is part of the 'breathability' of canvas which takes some getting used to - it does expand and contract according to weather conditions, and a little adjustment seems to be needed daily.  On the other hand, my nylon tent (which I put up as extra space and to give it another try) also needed regular adjustment depending on wind and rain, to tuck bits in and adjust guys etc, so maybe that's just tents for you :-)

The awning was great for cooking and general lounging around; I would certainly recommend fitting it right to the tent, as shown on www.belltent.co.uk , so that you don't have a gap for rain to enter.  It then feels like an extension of the tent.

Cheers,

Angela