Hot cutting cord for tent tie-outs
Rapid hot cutting of cord to make short lengths of cord for tent tie-outs.
My Pyramid tents have many tie-out and peg-out tabs that are very strong but small. This multitude of tabs allows the tent to be pitched in versatile ways. To protect the tabs from damage from pegging, I put a nylon cord loop through each tab. As well as providing abrasion protection for the tabs, they are easily replaceable (if damaged) and allow bush sticks to be used as tent pegs on soft ground and in snow.
[Add a photo of the protective loop on the tent.]
The task of cutting with scissors and then melting with a flame is tedious when making many such tie-outs. Consequently, I tried my newly acquired hot cutting knife to see if it would make the task quick and easy. It was a great success and it adds to the list of cutting and welding uses that this wonderful tool has, as described in my posts.
The hot cutting of cords
I coiled the nylon cord tightly around a suitable piece of pipe in preparation for the cutting, using some adhesive tape to anchor the starting end and finishing off the other end with a clove hitch to maintain tension.
Here is a little video of the hot cutting and below is the resulting neat string of perfectly prepared guy-out cords.
The cords are uniform and neatly kept together in a ‘string’ and ready to be pulled off the string to be knotted. “A great tedious but rewarding job to do sitting in front of a fire on a cold night including the threading and clinching of the loops through the very small tie-out tabs. I can now use the hot knife cutter to tack weld the tabs into place as prepare to integrate the tab into the lay flat tent seams as the tent is being sewn. If integration of tabs in seams with hot welding is too late for your tent, retro-fitting small tabs may interest you. I have a post on retro-fitting of tabs and glued preparation of tabs before seam sewing that predates the welded technique. They all are very strong, light and compact. “
[Add a photo of the knotted tie-out loops made from each piece of nylon cord]
Note: I have investigated nylon and polyester with regard to wet/cold stretching as pyramid tent fabrics and the polyester is very very stable. “No need to get up in the night to adjust the tent tension when it starts raining or slacken of guy lines when the sun comes out.” In contrast, the silnylon stretches/shrinks a great deal and makes it hard to maintain a taught ten pitch.
Similarly, I have compared nylon and polyester guy cords (both cheap brick layers lines). While the polyester cord is more cold/wet stable it is much more difficult to tie simple knots in it that will hold as well as they do in the nylon equivalent. Consequently, I am using nylon to make the small peg-out loops with simple knots as shown above and using the more stable polyester for the long doubled-up guy-out cords. I use bowline knots (that hold well in polyester cord) where each end terminates on the tiny tent tabs.
[Add a photo of a cord loop threaded and clinched in a tent tie-out tab.]
My breathing polyester winter palace tent provides an example of the use of so many of these little tie-outs. When completed, it will have about 50 such tie-out loops on the snow skirt, the normal bottom of the tent, the lower parts of the pyramid ridges (for low pegging down in storm mode) and even a few more around the tent for such purposes as drying lines hanging points and lighting.
Tim
