Message Forums

first I had a go myself on the kids tesco garden tent,then took the real item off our alaska 8 to atlas leisure and watched how they did it,so here goes. From what I saw the elastic is just longer than your assembled poles minus the end one. Tie a knot in one end of the elastic then thread the other end down the first section of pole.What I did here was get a long length of fishing line and fed it down all of the other poles in the order they would end up looking like when assembled[strong cotton or similar might do,but needs to be thin but pretty rigid as you are trying to push it all].tie the end of this to your elastic then build up your pole as you would normally.Pull the elastic out of the end and tie a knot in it then remove the fishing line/string/cotton and it should all be ok.The shops have a long needle which they shove down the last section before hooking the elastic,then pull it through.                     good luck,Les

tracy2007 are we talking about a steel pole or a fibreglass one?

For a spring in a metal pole....

Either pull out the damaged spring with strong pliers (watch your eyes and face!!) or, more easily, just leave it inside the pole and poke it down a bit. To insert the new spring either buy a respringing tool with the new springs or make one at home...essentially, this is just a medium sized flat bladed screwdriver with a notch filed into the centre of the blade.

Hold the pole upright, braced on the ground (I hold the end between my feet) then balance the end of the spring across the end of the pole, snag the central loop with the tool notch and push the spring down into the pole. Not too far, but far enough that the pointed ends of the spring are fully inside the pole.  Place the other pole side by side with the first and repeat with the other end of the spring...this will be more difficult. be sure not to pull the first end out.Pliers can help you get a better grip on the second end.  When you have both spring ends tucked inside the pole ends, push the ends down a little more, but with more spring inside the pole which recieves the end of the other pole, if that makes sense? Don't make it too tight though.

Things to watch out for. Springs can and do jump out when under tension and can make an awful mess of hands, face and eyeballs. If you own safety glasses this would be a good time to wear them, or an old pair of glasses. Keep kids away too. Oh, and just as pole diameters vary, there are different thicknesses of spring. The standard Gelert ones from most camp shops fit most poles but if you have extra butch awning poles there is a larger size for these.