30 yo tent

Specifically for cycle touring subjects & questions
PH
Posts: 13099
Joined: 21 Jan 2007, 12:31am
Location: Derby
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Re: 30 yo tent

Post by PH »

Depending on the thread used, the stitching can be the first thing to rot. It depends how synthetic it was, the advantage of natural threads is they expand when wet helping seal the seam, but 100% synthetic don't. On a 30 yo tent, I'd expect the thread to have quite a high cotton content. There'll always be a difference between the needle hole and the thread thickness, obviously, higher quality tent makers will use machinery (And machinists) that minimise this, but it's very specialised and expensive and I suspect the cheaper manufacturers will be using more generic equipment.
Problem with thread failure, is it looks OK until it just starts falling apart! For this reason I'd be tempted to follow crazydave's suggestion and go over the seams with sealant even if it looked like it didn't need it.
sunnydunny63
Posts: 13
Joined: 14 Nov 2017, 8:52am

Re: 30 yo tent

Post by sunnydunny63 »

I've a Pheonix Phlighter A from the early 90s. Just had it up for a spring check this last weekend. All good so treated it to a new Tyvek footprint for this year. So far only changed the peg loops and given it a proofing spray every 4th or 5th season.

Pity Pheonix went down as this tent has been fantastic over the years.
crazydave789
Posts: 584
Joined: 22 Jul 2017, 10:21pm

Re: 30 yo tent

Post by crazydave789 »

back in the 90s I fitted a kitchen for the Danish guy who started Outwell, he was a fabric technologist who got into tent design and I had many interesting cups of tea I as I was a keen hiker, biker, venture scout leader and DofE instructor at the time

the biggest thing seems to be where the fabric was made and what period, in the UK a lot of the fabric came from local mills and was good quality. the problem came when half the companies sourced from china which was a mistake and the ones who sourced from vietnam which had a brand new dupont factory and better workers produced much better products. companies like north face and terra nova used vietnamese fabrics while Vango went for chinese stuff.

my vango equinox was a good design poorly made and specced so lasted months before it needed repairing to deal with leaks and after a few years the tape sealing peeled away en masse, my TNF tadpole has had a minor pole repair and groundsheet re sealing in 25 years. it is still as good as when I bought it. one pitch inside out and application of silicone when I bought it and no trouble ever since.

most tents seem to fail with the seam tape, the missus has a vango micro 200 used approximately for a single weekend ten years ago because she didn't like it, pitched it last year and ended up taking all the seam tape off to manually seal it later on. its potentially a good bike tent but it will need a modification to keep the inner and outer seperate at the foot end - like they ended up doing themselves later on.

the chinese have finally caught up though and modern tents are a lot better but still built to last only so long.
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