[PE - RE: Grommet failure]

[Wendy Freeman/Otte]

Oh...I obviously forgot to mention the following in the grommet incident:

- The tent had been condemned after a tornado hit it.
- It had been stored, wet, on the floor of a basement for 5 years before I
claimed it as a newcomer.  It had amazing mildew/water-proof fabric, so I
wiped it down, replaced a few seams where the thread had rotted, and built new
poles (they had rotted through) in the first year.
- I had just spent the last 6 months reinforcing the weaker seams & replacing
the old/lost grommets. (This being the main reason I never want to see a
grommet again!) I had reinforced all the grommets I replaced with strong
triangular pieces of black cotton twill.  They were tight, the cloth was thick
enough, etc...
- A Lilies War wind took it down.  5 grommets ripped out in one blow - and I
was not about to spend another 6 months putting them back in!

I gave Big Red away to a good, loving home (it was a faithful tent that had
served me well for 3 years) and built my own grommetless tent.  It's what you
are willing to work with that matters.

But keep the "grommet-reinforcing" hints coming for those that want to use
them - they sound great.  Any documentation on grommets in medieval tents? 
Did they use the "ring & whipstitch" method (I tried it - not as easy as it
sounds!), or the "pound together" method we use mundanely?

--Wyllow

"Barclay, Peter C. MAJ" <barclayp at eucom.mil> wrote:
> My wife and I had a dayshade that eventually experienced some grommet
> failure, meaning the grommets started pulling out of the fabric...
> 
> The primary problem seemed to be "not enough thickness of fabric" for the
> grommet to really hold.  We solved the problem by stitching in a triangular
> piece of leather everywhere there was a grommet.  We had white leather for
> our white canvas, but you could certainly sandwich the leather between
> layers of canvas.  We stitched it down with a double row of stitching
around
> the outside, and then a double row up the center.  (Yes, we know we punched
> a hole in the center line of stitching when we set the grommets)
> 
> We also punched the holes a *little* small and then "struggled" to get the
> grommet in.  The fabric was easy, the leather a little harder.  We found
> this resulted in the fabric and leather being VERY tight up inside the
> grommet, and more for the grommet to grab.  The grommet also prevented the
> center lines of stitching  (we cut with the hole) from coming undone or
> wanting to pull out. 
> 
> We have since used the dayshade at about 20 events a year, and not had any
> grommets pull out in the last 4 years (since we fixed them all).  
> 
> respectfully, 
> 
>                      Terafan
> 
> Master Terafan Greydragon           barclayp at eucom.mil
> Brewer and probably other things I can't think of...
> Seneschal, Incipient Shire of Blauwasser
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Wendy Freeman/Otte [mailto:wyllow at netscape.net]
> Sent: Wednesday, February 09, 2000 8:17 PM
> To: tentguild at ansteorra.org
> Subject: PE - Re: [TENT - Need help hanging my walls]
> 
> 
> Better late than never!
> 
> A learning experience:
> I NEVER wanted to experience another grommet failure again (image a 10 x 20
> x
> 14 high tent, with 3 poles weighing 60lbs each  and 20 side poles coming
> down
> because 5 grommets failed at the same time...)  So I planned a tent with no
> grommet holes and only 2 lightweight poles.  King Rene's tent, again.
> 
> I used a thick rope around the edge of my tent, going through spaced loops
> of
> cloth, and made a case for a rope on the tops of each of my walls & doors. 
> Then it occurred to me that this would not allow any way for me to hook the
> walls to the roof - so I seamripped a bunch of slots in the wall cases, so
> loops of ropes could be pulled out.  I planned to loop the wall ropes
around
> the roop rope.  
> 
> It took 4 hours to get it up since I had to feed the ropes through all of
> these casings, plus my slits did not match my roof spaces, causing bunching
> &
> overlap. But it was nice & weatherproof.  Sigh...
> 
> So I cut pieces of rope the correct size for the wall & door pieces, preset
> the loops, and used a THIRD rope to hook them together.  
> Better - only two hours to hook the walls to the roof.  But the wind made
> the
> walls shift, and the slits and casings still don't match.  However, the
wind
> puts very little stress on my tent - it stood up to the annual Lilies War
> windstorm with barely a shrug.
> 
>
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