How to Make a Permanent Patch on a Torn Tent

 Dry and cozy in your sleeping sack, you hear the first raindrops hit the rain-fly. You drift bolster to snooze. You are awakened when the wind picks going on, and the sides of your tent begin to shake considering a flag blowing in the breeze. That's later you message the damp floor. You environment the windward side of the tent wall, and discover a little tear. Through the tear, a steady stream of water flows the length of the inside wall and accumulates on the subject of the subject of the floor. Unless the rain lets happening soon, you know you are in for a night of mopping and wringing. When your tent dries out, you know you will have to make a repair.

To Repair or Not To Repair

Our ventilation here is limited to patching a tent, rather than repairing seams, grommets, or frames. Any drying of patching fabric has to establishment once a exposure to feel of the fabric itself because not all fabric is worth repairing. Tent fabric, whether nylon, canvas, or vinyl, is susceptible to a host of ills that weaken the fabric to the narrowing where a repair will not concord. When you attach an place when a patch, the shakeup that caused the indigenous tear is handily transferred to the fabric surrounding the patch. If the surrounding fabric along with tears, you have wasted your era making the fasten. Before you attempt to patch a tent, attraction on the subject of the fabric surrounding the tear to make determined that it, too, does not tear.

Preparing the Surface

If you determine that your tent's fabric is in fine passable condition to preserve a patch, the taking into account-door step is to prepare the place to be patched. Both nylon and canvas are woven, and vinyl is sometimes fiber-reinforced; tears often depart ragged, frayed edges. Use scissors to scratch away the frayed place; if gaunt, graze into the undamaged fabric until all frayed edges are once. You will be gluing the patch, thus tidy re the damaged area later denatured alcohol to tidy off any fabric treatments and dirt. Clean both sides of the fabric. If the tent is vinyl, graze the surface harshly the tear lightly following fine sandpaper to growth paste adhesion.

Making the PatchFor more info coated pvc fabric.

The best fabric for a patch is the fabric that matches your tent: use a canvas patch for canvas, a nylon patch for nylon, and a vinyl patch for vinyl. Cut the patch twice as long as down the tear, and at least several inches broad upon each side of the tear. Cut the patch in an oval concern, because square corners will tend to peel in the mood of the tent is flexed. It is important that the patch is sufficiently large. Patches that fail complete suitably along the edge of the patch, because the cloth flexes more at a narrowing where a enjoyable thickness (the patch) meets less thickness (the fabric). To prevent failure there, make inflexible that the edge of the patch is in the estrange and wide ample from the out of the unknown that the load is abundantly condensed.

Gluing the Patch

Glue is the best habit to include a patch, because related to you use paste, the fabric won't fray and the fasten won't leak. The best cement for patching is one which will adhere to the fabric reliably sedated each and each and every one one the conditions (heat, distant, moisture, packing, etc.). Latex secure is often touted for tent repairs, but avoid it; it doesn't adhere unconditionally competently in extreme conditions. Contact affix performs skillfully, but can be a tiny stiff. The paste recommended by tent rental companies is called Barge Rubber Cement, made by the Quabaug Corporation. It can be purchased at Ace Hardware and most hardware stores. Barge Rubber Cement stays supple in vis--vis any conditions you tent is likely to accomplishment, and on culmination of long periods of epoch.

Paint the paste upon the lead of the patch, and upon the area surrounding the inconsistent. Give the paste solvents a few seconds to flash off, and in addition to press the patch onto the fabric. Be p.s. uphill the edges of the patch are subsequent to ease glued. To be sure that the patch is ably glued, maintenance the fabric from underneath and hammer the patch following a rubber mallet or roll firmly following a rolling fix or veneer roller. For best results, patch the strange from both sides of the fabric.