Hope you experience campers can give me some advice. We went away in May and attempted to put the tent up in fairly strong wind, only to have a number of sections of pole shatter, we have a Outwell Georgia with the durawrap poles, we replaced them and the tent went up ok with no further problems. But i have just come to check all the poles for cracks etc as advised to do and i have found a number of poles with small cracks on the end (the flat edge of the pole that goes into the silver bit, not the length of the pole) Do i need to replace all these poles or is this often the case?
I am hoping you all tell me it will be ok, if not please tell me how i replace poles.
I can't help with your query but one of the theories about shattering fibreglass or similar poles is that people tend to chuck the pole bags around, drop them on the floor etc and that this damages them but you can't always see the damage but they become weak.
It's one of the reasons we use frame tents, OH can chuck the poles around as much as he likes!
Quote: Originally posted by PigletandTigger on 08/7/2009
I can't help with your query but one of the theories about shattering fibreglass or similar poles is that people tend to chuck the pole bags around, drop them on the floor etc and that this damages them but you can't always see the damage but they become weak.
It's one of the reasons we use frame tents, OH can chuck the poles around as much as he likes!
hmmm yes they may have got thrown back in the boot, when we went throught the "kids back in the car we are going home....."
If it's just the end bits I'd be tempted to leave them as they are and make sure I took spare pole sections, spare elastic and roll of duck tape with me on future trips. They're not all going to snap at the same time (hopefully) so you should be able to do them individually as they go or tape them till you pack up and go home.
If the end of the pole has a crack in it then it will be prone to shattering as it has obviousley been under stress already and it wouldn't take too much more to split the entire lengh. Replacing a pole is an easy affair but you have to make sure you buy both the correct diameter and lengh. You can always shorten a longer pole but not lengthen a short pole.
If you don't want to bother with it yourself any good camping shop will be able to help and I am not talking about Lidl Asda or Tescos here.
Failing that if you want to hope it won't break make sure you take ducting or insulation tape along for when it does go.
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Topic: What should I do-cracked poles?
