Texsport Adjustable Tent Pole

Why we love it?

One pole three pieces system fits into included carry bag 3’ 5” to 7’ 10” Ajustable Length

Some comments about this we saw on the web:

* /u/percussivepaul on /r/BurningMan Telescoping poles like this – http://www.amazon.com/Texsport-14092-Ajustable-Tent-Pole/dp/B001DZNYFE/ref=sr_1_2?s=sporting-goods&ie=UTF8&qid=1385000786&sr=1-2&keywords=tent+pole though one of them was so stuck it wouldn’t extend – kind of poor quality. I also recommend something like camo netting spreaders if you can find them (didn’t have these).

here’s a step by step.
1. get a giant piece of shade cloth. I got a 12x20 ft piece of 90% cloth from here: http://www.shadeclothstore.com/products/shadecloth90__knittedshadecloth.html Make sure the shade is a. big enough to cover most of your tent, and b. high opacity.

on-playa – drape the shade cloth directly over your tent.
tie ropes to the four corners of the shade cloth. I suggest tying each corner into a knot with itself, and wrapping the rope around the knot. Initially I tied rope through the grommets of the cloth, but the wind ripped them right out.
Hammer down a piece of rebar out from each of the four corners. I used candy-caned rebar hammed all the way in to form a loop with the ground (i.e. no way for the rope to slide out without pulling the rebar right out)
Tie the rope on each corner to the rebar with a sliding knot, i.e. one you can tighten after tying it.

At this point the cloth is sitting securely on the tent tied to rebar at all four corners. It needs to be tensioned so it doesn’t flap in the wind and rip the ropes. One way to do this is just tighten the fuck out of the four ropes you’ve already got – then the cloth will press into the tent’s pole structure, which is already tensioned, and you will be secure. But then there is zero airflow between the cloth and the tend, which reduces the effectiveness of shade. So: the poles. (below)

If you want to visualize how this looks: the shade cloth is rectangular, 12x20 feet (if you have a small tent you might get away with a smaller piece – we had a big 4-man tent). The tent sits square in the middle, with the entrance along the long side of the cloth. When the cloth is draped over the tent, the 12ft sides touch the ground on opposite sides of the tent (or nearly do, depending on the size of the tent), and the 20ft sides form an arc which you can duck under to get in and out. It’s sort of like a mini-monkey-hut, where instead of a PVC frame, you’re using the internal poles of the tent to support the shade. But in practice it looks more like a rain-fly made of shade cloth. The four corners should pull out away from the tent quite a distance. This give you some nice extra storage on the ground between the tent and the edge of the cloth, as well.

Have the shade loosely sitting on the tent, bring the poles underneath the shade, and stand them up on all four sides of the tent. They should press against the top of the cloth. Adjust the sliding knots so the cloth is fairly tight. Then extend the poles as high as you can, pushing hard straight up. The cloth is slightly stretchy and will take the extra pressure. The tension will keep the poles standing straight up – no need for guy lines, though you can add them if you want. The effect is sort of like a circus tent with four peaks spread around the tent. It will be flattish in the middle, sagging a bit.
Pull the ropes tight again – the tighter the better. The idea with tension is that any force acting on the structure (wind) is transmitted through the entire structure and evenly distributed among all the ropes – it greatly increases the effective strength of the rope. Periodically as the wind fucks with you you may need to tighten the ropes and adjust the position of the poles. You might also experiment with more rebar and more guy ropes, but take care to keep the structure tensioned. You also may find the poles want to punch through the shade – which is why it’s good to have spreaders on top, or something like that, to distribute the force. But the good thing is that it fails pretty gracefully – if a rope snaps, you lose tension, maybe the poles fall sideways, but the cloth just drapes over your tent and probably sits there, or maybe slides onto the ground around your tent. In any case I found this design does really well in the wind – wind just slides up and over, since it presents a mostly inclined profile on all four sides, and even if the wind does blow under the short side, knitted shade cloth lets a lot of wind pass through (unlike a tarp, which inflates like a sail).

Good luck. Let me know if this makes sense (or not).

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