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Hi - I am looking for a bit of advice.

I recently bought a Coleman Trailblazer as a weekend tent for short trips when putting up and taking down the Outwell Monster would be too much.

It is basically an inner first with domed sleeping area with a single pole tunnel living / storage area off it so only 3 fibregalss poles in total and quick to pitch. Chose a Coleman rather than unbranded / Argos / Halfords etc. becuase I thought they would have the basics and quality right.

Anyway the tent which was delivered had a front (tunnel) pole which was IMPOSSIBLE to fit (too long). After a couple of fruitless calls to the suppliers I ended up shortening it by a couple of inches so that we could at least use the tent that weekend. Then when we erected it for real on site I found that the fibreglass dome poles (which thread through sleeves and clips on the inner tent) also seemed to be too long. I could fit them but it was impossible to align them with the seams (and corresponding ties) on the flysheet because the poles wanted to form a larger  (and distorted) dome than the flysheet. This was OK in the dry but as soon as it rained the flysheet was too close to the inner and water wicked in. No amount of clever guying and pegging would stop this.

I have e-mailed Coleman and await a response. In the meantime I am wondering whether lopping a few inches off the dome poles would solve the problem and whether it is worth trying. Have anyone taken this sort of approach to an iffy tent and, if so, is it worth it?

Thanks in advance for any help.

Quote: Originally posted by Dr Cheese on 02/8/2009

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If you've modified any of the poles you may find the retailer will refuse to take it back.

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Yes, I was going to say that too.

Also...given that you had two pitching problems in seperate areas of the tent, are you sure you got the poles the right way round?

Thanks for your responses.

I have definitely got the poles in the right sleeves. If time between trips permits I will try to return / exchange it but that was not really the point of my post. More, I was asking whether anyone had experience of seemingly too long dome poles on an inner first tent and whether shortening them had solved the problem.

Well if they will take it back for a refund/exchange of your choice then problem solved, eh?

If not, then lets get back to the pegging problem. You're not trying to peg the flysheet so that it touches the ground by any chance? There will probably be a 4-6" gap all the way round, for ventilation. The poles on an inner-first tent usually are larger than the inner itself so that the inner hangs down inside the "cage" of poles. And...to get back to real basics...you did loosen off all tension straps before you started, yes? And you tried re-threading the dome poles so that the opposite pole lay on top of the cross at the apex? Sometimes the design means that one pole is marginally longer than the other, or the pole sleeve is shorter, and this affects the crossing at the top. Also you didn't twist the ring and pin loop while pegging? It's important that the tensioning straps lie flat and the poles fit on the correct pins without twisting. This goes x5 if there's no built-in adjustment for tensioning.

(Not meaning to insult your intelligence, just brainstorming! A picture of the problem would be helpful. Got pix??)

If all else fails then you could cautiously try shortening the two cross poles an inch at a time, given that you'd have nothing to lose.  If you have a couple of old pole sections lying around then use them first to trim down to get the correct length. Remember though that you do need a fair bit of compression on a pole when in use to hold the sections fully into the ferrules for maximum strength, so don't cut the pole too short. You should need to have a bit of a struggle to get into the fixtures, if there's no adjustment system! Try wearing rubber gloves for a good grip on the poles.