Apr 23, 2017

Planks, Poles & Canvas in one

Part 2 ... the DIY roof-top tent project continues.

A quick summary of ‘Part 1’ had me at the end of day two with a couple of varnished plywood boards and a bunch of metal bits that needed attaching to them, which I duly did; hinge brackets in place, tent pole anchors all bolted down … more clever juice (beer) time; I figured I’d be needing this as the next day the canvas work would be ready and then to figure out how it was all meant to fit together!?!?!

First I bolted the opposing hinge brackets together, leaving just enough slack for them to move, and as I’d figured it best to begin attaching the sides at the bottom, turned the now joined boards upside down.

Then it was a case of starting at one end and working my way around gluing and stapling the canvas onto the boards; for which I included a 10cm skirt in the design.

With the bottom completed it was time to repeat the procedure on the topside. So, I duly spun the boards, now with half attached canvas, over and inserted the tent poles into place, adjusting them to the correct length. More gluing and stapling followed, once again from one end and all the way around.

The PVC cover was designed and made up as a complete zip up sleeve in order for it to be waterproof and as such the entire flattened tent needed to be inserted into this with the bottom correctly aligned before bolting the aluminium roof-rack mounting tubes to the bottom. Now that was a bit of a fiddle at times, but I got there in the end – one of the appropriate moments when the utterance of certain expletives certainly helped!

A bunch more four-letter worded, hugely descriptive vocabulary followed when it came to the next stage – ‘bopa’ing’ (for those of you who have forgotten the explanation from ‘Part 1’ – a colloquial term borrowed from isiZulu meaning fasten or attach) the now almost complete tent to the roof-rack.

Anyone who has a Front Runner, or similar, roof-rack and has needed to align a large something onto six specifically positioned upturned bolts will understand perfectly what I am talking about.

They will undoubtedly also know that, along with certain said expletives, this is made waaaaay easier through the consumption of some clever/humour juice throughout the procedure, ie. ‘beer’ – for the rest of you who missed ‘Part 1’.

Tightening up the six nuts within their confined spaces is really special too, but one gets there after a while … shum time!

I drilled holes directly into my roof-rack to house the ends of the spring-steel fly-sheet rods, which I found in a camping and outdoor store in Windhoek on my first outing after fitting the tent; they were the perfect length too.

My mattress was also purchased from Canvas Zone and consists of a piece of high-density foam cut to size with a removable, and therefore washable, cover. This I stuffed into the tent, threw in some linen, a sleeping bag and voila! There you have it, good to go.

And so, reflecting on those reasons mentioned in ‘Part1’ for tackling this endeavour …

Personally I reckon the first two reasons regarding why tackle a project like this worked out quite well … Because I can, so I did, and to my own design spec too.

Was it of financial benefit in the end? … I reckon it wouldn’t be too difficult to find a really good second hand roof-top tent for ZAR 9,000 (or even less); which is what this project cost me.

... But then that wouldn’t have been nearly as much fun now, would it?