Dry and cozy in your sleeping bag, you listen to the initial raindrops hit the rain-fly. You drift again to snooze. You are awakened when the wind picks up, and the sides of your tent commence to shake like a flag blowing in the breeze. That’s when you recognize the moist floor. You feel the windward side of the tent wall, and find a smaller tear. By way of the tear, a continuous stream of water flows down the within wall and accumulates on the ground. Except if the rain lets up soon, you know you are in for a night time of mopping and wringing. When your tent dries out, you know you will have to make a repair service.
To Mend or Not To Maintenance
Our discussion here is minimal to patching a tent, relatively than repairing seams, grommets, or frames. Any dialogue of patching fabric has to start with a dialogue of the fabric by itself since not all cloth is well worth repairing. Tent fabric, whether or not nylon, canvas, or vinyl, is inclined to a host of ills that weaken the cloth to the place the place a repair service will not hold. When you fix an location with a patch, the tension that caused the primary tear is only transferred to the cloth surrounding the patch. If the surrounding cloth then tears, you have wasted your time creating the restore. Right before you endeavor to patch a tent, pull on the fabric surrounding the tear to make confident that it, far too, does not tear.
Getting ready the Surface
If you ascertain that your tent’s cloth is in superior more than enough ailment to keep a patch, the next move is to get ready the place to be patched. Each nylon and canvas are woven, and vinyl is at times fiber-strengthened tears often go away ragged, frayed edges. Use scissors to lower absent the frayed spot if required, cut into the undamaged material until all frayed edges are long gone. You will be gluing the patch, so cleanse all-around the harmed region with denatured alcohol to clean up off any cloth treatments and dust. Cleanse equally sides of the fabric. If the tent is vinyl, scratch the area about the tear evenly with wonderful sandpaper to raise glue adhesion.
Producing the Patch
The best cloth for a patch is the material that matches your tent: use a canvas patch for canvas, a nylon patch for nylon, and a vinyl patch for vinyl. Cut the patch twice as prolonged as the duration of the tear, and at minimum several inches vast on every single aspect of the tear. Reduce the patch in an oval shape, due to the fact square corners will are inclined to peel when the tent is flexed. It is vital that the patch is sufficiently large. Patches that are unsuccessful do so together the edge of the patch, mainly because the cloth flexes much more at a issue the place a wonderful thickness (the patch) meets much less thickness (the fabric). To avoid failure there, make positive that the edge of the patch is significantly plenty of from the injury that the load is adequately minimized.
Gluing the Patch
Glue is the very best way to connect a patch, because when you use glue, the fabric will not fray and the mend will never leak. The finest glue for patching is 1 which will adhere to the fabric reliably beneath all the problems (warmth, chilly, dampness, packing, and many others.). Latex cement is typically touted for tent repairs, but keep away from it it doesn’t adhere very well in extraordinary circumstances. Call cement performs properly, but can be a minimal rigid. The glue advised by tent rental providers is called Barge Rubber Cement, designed by the Quabaug Company. It can be purchased at Ace Hardware and most hardware retailers. Barge Rubber Cement stays flexible in just about any disorders you tent is probably to experience, and over very long durations of time.
Paint the glue on the again of the patch, and on the spot surrounding the hurt. Give the glue solvents a several seconds to flash off, and then press the patch on to the fabric. Be sure the edges of the patch are very well glued. To be specific that the patch is perfectly glued, help the fabric from beneath and hammer the patch with a rubber mallet or roll firmly with a rolling pin or veneer roller. For most effective effects, patch the harm from equally sides of the material.
Let the glue time to get rid of just before packing the tent for storage. Though you are earning the mend, position some of your fix supplies in a plastic bag and pack them with your tent you never know how much from residence you will be the future time to require to patch a tear.
