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You're probably never get the boys to sleep in a tent without floor and screen door. :)

 

I really liked those tents. I would think they would be easy enough to be made. There're really not all that much to them.

 

Stosh

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Boy's Life ran a segment called Litepac in the 50s-70s with do-it-yourself equipment including tents. I'm sure you could find a pattern close to the Explorer in the BL archive at http://boyslife.org/wayback/
"Cruiser" lightweight plans: http://boyslife.org/wayback/#issue=Q_T9HRnCiXIC&pg=64'>http://boyslife.org/wayback/#issue=Q_T9HRnCiXIC&pg=64

"Hickory" http://boyslife.org/wayback/#issue=Q_T9HRnCiXIC&pg=64

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  • 2 months later...

The old pup tents were easy to do blindfolded; domes with sleeves for poles are not. Even seeing the tent I still sometimes struggle to get the right sleeve going across. And of course, newer ones have more poles at times. Guess the basic dome is not too bad, as long as you get the cross in the middle handled.

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  • 1 year later...

Ah the warm memories that this thread  brings back to me. That was the good old days of scouting. 

 

That being said, I don't miss the canvas tents. They were heavy, smelly and dried really slow. They required good staking to remain upright (many rainy nights of restaking the tent) and a person tended to find themselves outside under the stars because they slipped under the tent went set up on slopes. And there was no way of keeping gear dry as the rain flowed through the tent. We trenched around the tent, but what a mess. Yep, not  a lot of fond memories of the old tents compared to todays tents.

 

The Explorer style tents don't do as well in Oklahoma as dome style tents because they are like sails in the wind and tear down easily. Most troops while I was a scout used the Overnighter (number 4 on Tawhawk's catalog) scout tent or the Backer tent (Number 5) because they resisted the wind better.

 

I agree with the sleeves of dome tents. We learned over the years to find backpacking tents that only use hooks instead of sleeves so that they can be set up at night in the rain much faster. In fact, setting up a tent blind folded is something the scouts would practice before a trek.

 

Barry

Edited by Eagledad
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