Wool tent debut success! Held up against thunderstorm front, and much admired.

It worked!  A cold front came through and blew down 2 tents in the night, and three more needed serious emergency help, but this geteld weathered like a champ.  It got restaked in the morning, and there was a bit of water intrusion, but all the bedding and stuff stayed dry, and I slept, so I count it as a SUCCESS.

Lots of people admired it, including mundane visitors to the fort.  The fabric is very pettable.

More pics below, with my comments on some further fine tuning.

Here's the pile of my stuff: Clothes chest by Gregg, table from Peg.  The bedcover is a monster embroidery work in progress...it'll continue to change.  My handspun/handwoven shawl is on the bed.  The colorful rug is a Turkish one.  I still want to ornament the chest, the table, and the vanity box too.

This outside shot shows the bee standard (which flew for the first time here), my wooden buckets (courtesy of Eoin and Theadora) and my solar-powered rechargable lightning bug jars.  You can just see that the tent floor is fabric sewn to a green tarp, where it's flipped up slightly.

Here's the remains of the weather front, as it passed in the morning, and a closeup of the cast aluminum bee.  That was my first project with Michael von Moulton's help, and started the Summer of Ambitious Projects.  Also here you can see my interpretation of the purpose of those ears - on this tent they help to keep the fabric tensioned along the ridge pole.  I did a little henstitch on the cut edge of the ear to keep it neat.  I'd like to do a bit more embroidery on the ears - bees and confronted intertwined Gs.

No, this isn't another mildew shot.  See the tear at the base of the door panel?  That's telling me:

1.  That loop is probably in the wrong place.

2.  Another jute strap along the door edge would be a good idea.

Here's a panel on the windward side.  The dark line of stitching on the left is dark because it's acting as a conduit for water shedding.  The fabric at the base is saturated - this is the only area where water came inside, when it was this wet, and then got blown on.  The height ranged from a few inches, as here, to about a foot up.  If a curve occurred in this saturated area, it did drip inside at the belly of the curve, but all of that happened at the very edges of the floor.

Speaking of the floor:  I'm glad I made this floor, but I can see when there might be times when I don't want to use it.  If water comes in, it can't get back out without my help and a chamois cloth.  I will probably make another floor without a tarp lining.  At the structural seam for the ears, which occurs at the middle of a jute strap, water runs along the seam and then drips when it runs out of seam.  I think this can be alleviated by moving the structural seam to the edge of the jute strap, so that the conduit line will be continued by the edge of the jute strap, and carried safely down the tent wall.

I did rig up an interior rain fly, but I don't think it really did anything, since I didn't see any moisture on the plastic membrane the next morning.  I'll keep it in the "emergency tent pack" regardless - it helped me relax enough in the storm to sleep.  I worried about the few manufacturing flaws in the fabric, but NONE of them dripped whatsoever.  I still might put patches on them in time...of course I'll put them on with the madder-red wool yarn, so they'll add to the effect.

I now know what the tentbuilding guy at Pennsic meant by "wool tensions beautifully".  It sags a bit when it gets damp, and then *shrinks to the new shape* when it dries.  The jute straps prevent over stretching, so the restaking after a hard rain is an improvement in the performance.  I'm really really happy I made a wool tent.

Comments

[Mike Moulton]

Great Pictures.
Mike M

[JAY LUTHY]

Great Tent Project!
Keep up the good work!
When you post such good pictures and tell what you did in the process of your projects you help us all learn with you.

I may never build a tent but I know a lot about it now that I have read your entries.

thanks!

Jaye of Goodlett

(Jay Luthy)

[JAY LUTHY]

What is a solar powered lightening bug jar........?