Part 37 (1/2)

This, again, is best done by cutting it out in newspapers pasted together and spread out on the floor. These paper cuttings then serve as ”patterns,” on which you can cut your canvas without wasting any of it.

THE MATERIAL.

The kind of stuff to use for tent making depends a good deal on how much you can afford for material, and what work you want the tent for.

Thus, if you want a very light tent for carrying on your back or bicycle, and have plenty of money, a silk tent at 4s. a yard is very nice; but probably you would like one of cheaper material, and fairly light and strong.

Lawn, made of Egyptian cotton, calico sheeting, or brown calico makes a very satisfactory tent at an outlay of 10s. or so for the whole thing complete.

SEWING.

After having purchased your stuff, and cut it out according to the paper pattern, pin it, or tack it, all together, and see how it fits.

Then st.i.tch the seams together, using cotton, not thick thread.

[Ill.u.s.tration: STEEP SIDES TOO WIDE.]

Seams should be double-st.i.tched-that is, the edges of the two pieces of canvas should overlap, and each be st.i.tched to the other piece. At all points where a strain is likely to come on the canvas-namely, at the corners and at places where eyelets for ropes have to come, it is best to have a strengthening patch of canvas sewn over the other canvas.

Then wide, stout tape should be sewn along the edge of the canvas wherever there is to be any strain on it, such as eyelet holes for ropes, or hooks and eyes, or strings for closing the ends of the tent, etc.

Often in woods you can find two trees standing, say, eight feet apart.

If you have a six-foot tent, you can use these for tent poles by tying (”las.h.i.+ng” is the word used by sailors and Scouts) each end of the ridge of the tent to a tree.

This can be more easily done if your ridge is strengthened with a tape sewn inside it, and made into a loop at each end. It is always as well to make these loops on your tents, as they come in useful in other ways.

A strip of canvas is often st.i.tched on to the foot of the tent, as shown in the picture, either to hold it down with pegs or stones, or to be turned inwards underneath your ground sheet to prevent draughts coming in under the wall.

A tent should not be made wider than its height, because the roof will not be steep enough to run the rain off quickly, and so will let it through more easily.

TENT POLES.

The poles should not be made of any weak wood liable to split or break, but of tough elm, hickory, ash, or bamboo.

For small tents of about five feet high they need be only one to one-and-a-half inches thick.

For heavy tents of over ten feet long and over six feet high, they have to be at least two inches thick. Bamboos are generally tougher than wood, so need not be quite so stout.

TENT PEGS.

Tent pegs may be easily made of wood, but should be of a tough kind that does not split easily. They are generally made in the shape shown below, about ten inches long.

You can also get them of iron, but these, though they do not break, do not hold quite so well in the ground, and are heavy to carry.

Aluminium ones are lighter, expensive, and inclined to bend.