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TID BITS

The American's Creed

I believe in the United States of America as a government of the people, by the people, for the people, whose just powers are derived from the consent of the governed, a democracy in a republic, a sovereign nation of many sovereign states, a perfect union, one and inseparable, established upon those principles of freedom,equality, justice and humanity for which American Patriots sacrificed their lives and fortunes. I therefore believe it is my duty to my country to love it, to support its constituion, to obey its laws, to respect itd flag and defend it against all enemies.

Written in 1918 by William Tyler Page

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The Care and Feeding of Tents

Tricks and Tips

Earl J. Becker, Jr.

Only buy the best canvas. Sunforger, boat shrunk and fire resistant, especially if you are going to have a stove in your tent. Research tent style. Get some tent catalogs and compare sizes. Find what type fits your persona, and make sure the size isn't out of context at events. Make your choice, but you should like your tent after 3 or 4 events.

Keep Your Tent Clean

Set up and wash after a particularly dusty event. A mild detergent such as dish detergent and a soft brush, light scrubbing and make sure you rinse well all the soap off the tent as the soap will interfere with the waterproofing. And then the tent will leak. Make sure your tent is absolutely dry before storage. Dust attaches itself to your canvas and sort of bakes itself into the canvas and dust, being organic soon attracts mold spores and sooner or later you will have a discolored tent that resists washing and if left to a worse case scenario, the mold reaches the other side of the canvas and your tent will leak and no amount of waterproofing will stop the leak.

If I am unable to completely dry my tent at an event or outside due to bad weather, like when I came back from the Alafia in January, I have a dry basement and use it for drying. I have attached various hooks in the ceiling and walls and I hang my tent up, and even completely soaking wet, my tent will be completely dry in 4 to 5 days.

Water Proofing Your Tent

Simple, don't do it yourself, but if you must, get a good quality waterproofing liquid. Follow the directions. Thompson's waterproofing is not a good choice. Your tent will smell of chemicals and in a few years time, the tent will rot and you will have to buy the waterproofed tent you should have bought in the first place. I know this from first hand experience.

Remember, before you take your just purchased tent to an event, if you can set it up in your back yard, check your poles and ropes. And then completely soak your tent with a hose. Let dry and repeat the cycle of wet and dry 2 or 3 times. This soaking and drying shrinks the canvas, and sets the canvas to the poles of your tent. Now check the uprights for length as they may now be an inch or two longer. I like my stake loops an inch or so off the ground, so when I drive the stake home, it pulls the loop down and puts tension on that part of the tent.

Sod Flaps

On the bottom of your tents walls and doors are the way to go. Sod flaps help keep water, insects, and drafts out. They are an extra cost item, but well worth the extra money.

Ridge Poles

I use 2x4 and bore my holes for my upright pins through the narrow side as this gives more strength and tension to the canvas.

After I shrink my new tent and make sure everything fits properly, the upright pins going and the grommets in the ridge of the tent. I take the tent down and reinforce the ridge pole by drilling holes through the ridge pole on both sides of the upright pin holes and very carefully insert wooden Doule pins. I use 3/8 diameter Doule pins. Use just a little carpenter's glue. Make sure to clean up any excess glue. This extra protection will keep your ridge pole from splitting out.

For my larger tents I chose a 2x4 with a bow in the middle of the narrow side. This bow in the top of the tent gives extra tension and strength to your tent, and when the side ridge loops and side rails are properly staked and tensioned, make for a very strong set up.

Take it from me, you haven't lived until your tent has blown over in a wind and rain storm, with you in it!!!

UP-Rights

Again, I use 2x4 for upright poles. When I drill holes for the upright pins, I always drill an extra set of up-right pin holes in the other end. So if an upright splits out, just turn it around, dig the dirt out of the hole and use it. This saves a trip to Home Depot. Up right poles can be painted or stained. I never paint or stain the ridge pole as there is always a possibility that the canvas may stick to the ridge pole.

Waterproofing and Insect Spray

Yes, insect spray if sprayed onto the canvas to the point that the canvas is saturated, and if it rains before the spray dries, your tent will leak, no matter if the tent is made of regular canvas or water repellant canvas. But when the spray dries, the canvas will return to its former state and no harm will be done to the canvas.

How to Sleep Bug Free

I use Pathmark Insect spray,$2.25 per aerosol. After tent is set up, but before the floor goes in, I spray around the inside and outside walls. This helps keep ants out. At night I secure my sod flaps. Make sure doors overlap properly and are tied. I then take the dog outside and spray my tent. Spray the ridge area, corners, under the cot, tables and between boxes. It doesn't take much spray to do the job. Depending on how much spray you use. It takes 20 to 30 minutes, then you can have a good nights rest.

A Fire Hazard

Don't sleep with a candle burning in your tent. Not only is the light a magnet for bugs but the hydro carbons expelled from the candle are bad for your lungs and probably will give you a headache in the morning also. For hot weather camping I use a brown cotton sheet, just enough to cover me when it is too hot for blankets.

Tent Storage

I store all my tents in canvas storage bags that have a loose fit. The tent people tell you not to use a storage bag, this is because if the tent is not completely dry when put away, will cause moisture and will mildew and rot the tent. Simply just put away a dry tent. Also a storage bag keeps your expensive tent cleaner, especially when going to or coming from an event. Store it in a cool dry place.

Fire Retardant Canvas

If you are going to have a stove in your tent, and sooner or later most of us will have a stove, fire retardant canvas is the way to go. I prefer to install my own stove hole. This way you can adjust the stove and the hole first shot. And especially after I retro-fitted a tent by a major tent company that didn't cut the hole properly and the canvas even though fire retardant was within 3 inches of the stove pipe.

Also tent size for tent size fire retardant canvas is noticeably heavier than regular canvas and some events or rendezvous require fire resistant tentage. And having lost two tents to a fire in 1984 and being in very close proximity to a major tent fire in 2002. Old non retardant canvas tents burn very quickly and I never put straw in my tent or around the sides even though I may not use a stove at an event. Straw around a private tent caught a spark from a cook fire and the tent ignited almost instantly, burning the one next to it and quick work from my artillery unit, pulling down the next two tents kept the whole line from burning.

TENT REPAIR

Sooner or later as tents get older, they start to rip. When doing repairs, use cotton thread as cotton swells to fill your needle holes. Use the Chinese needle, as small needle holes close more tightly around the thread and this helps water repellance.

To patch hole, or rip, I lightly sew the edges together then I cut a patch to fit out of a small store of waterproof canvas that I have. I use "Shoe Goo" as canvas glue. Don't laugh at the name as it has many uses outside of fixing tents and shoes. I apply a medium layer over the patch completely,then carefully put the patch on the repair then press down smoothing out the patch. Remove excess "Shoe Goo". Hold in place for a minute and it's done. Tent is usable in about 4 hours, no leaks.

TENTS DO'S AND DON'TS

Do put plastic under the floor of your tent. This helps keep your floor direr and adds years to its usable life.

Do take good care of your tent. When packing up your tent, don't fold up any leaves or bugs as these are organic material and decay and rot and stain your tent. And I take extra care of my sod flaps and when dry I use a soft brush. And sometimes a light rubbing with a damp cloth.

Don't put away a wet tent. Do make sure the tent is completely dry and do use a storage bag.

Don't allow large puddles of water to stand on the tent for an extended length of time, as this will stretch the canvas.

Don't put up a tent yourself. If you can get help, use it. More ride poles and uprights are broken this way. DUCT TAPE is a temporary repair, but why take the chance?

Do keep extra stakes and a hammer nearby. I keep stakes and a hammer just outside the door of my tent by the candle lantern, just in case.

Do keep a bucket full of water nearby.

Do use steel ridge pole pins and have the pins stick out approx 3 inches. This is so if need be during a storm, ropes can be attached and staked down, and extra tension on the tent. And on a personal note, you haven't been tenting long enough if you haven't been blown down or had a very close call.

Some research went into this article. I looked through some 19th century camping books. The only difference I could tell that size by size, shape for shape, and the total absence of a back door, there was no difference. Except now in the 21st century, we have much superior canvas.

Onebook, "Advice to a Tenderfoot" 1835 has a section under "Tent Damage" in the last paragrah I found a nugget of wisdom- always bring extra canvas.

Watch your back trail

Earl

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The Eyes Have It

John Cholin

We have all heard the old sage: " You can't hit what you can't see". It is a fundamental principle of good marksmanship. However, as we get older more of us must rely on some form of corrective lenses to enable us to see what we used to take for granted. I, too have noticed, of late that my arms have gotten too short and I don't see close so well anymore.

Many figure that once the eyes have aged some that their shooting days are over. Well, there is a lot we can do to accomodate such changes in our vision. Readers of experience should read carefully the recent edition of MUZZLEBLASTS in which the Bevel Brothers discuss an aperture that is attached to shooting glasses. Even if you are not inclined to add that contraption to your glasses, there are some things we can do to make our rifles more "shootable",especially in the area of the sights. Simple refinements in the sights on a rifle can improve the shhoter's ability to hit profoundly. Its up to us to make sure that the eyes have it. So what can we do to make our sights give our eyes what they need?

Our eyes need light. Not any old light, light that is free of non-parallel rays, we call "glare". Properly designed sights can give our eyes what they need.

Original rifles exist with a wide range of sights quality from crummy to sublime. Unfortunately, we have to know enough about optics to make a wise choice- especially if we want to hit, and shooting is a lot more fun when you hit! Your eyes need light in order to see. The more light they get the better they can distinguish shapes, find centers and focus. Focus is usually the limiting factor. As we age our ability to change the focus of our eyes slows down and we loose the ability to "see" the combination of the rear sight, front sight and target center concurrently. There are many rifles out there with fillers in the top flat of the barrel where the rear sight has been moved forward to allow the shooter to focus better. But there are a lot of things we can do before we resort to that kind of gun surgery.

Traditionally rifles used a V-notch rear sight and a "grain of wheat" front sight. Using a "center-hold", these sights give a sight picture that looks like:

In bright sun glare occurs at the edges of the sight due to light scattering. Since the rear sight is closer to the shooter's eye than the front sight, it will also appear fuzzy due to the different focal lengths between sights. The result i8s a sight picture that looks more like:

Unfortunately, this pattern makes it difficult to discern exactly where the tops of both the front and rear sights are as well as wether the front sight is precisely centered in the notch. No matter how hard the shooter tries the sights limit the accuracy potential of the rifle simply due to the optics that govern open, iron sights.

Back in the late 19th century the U.S. Army realized that the sights on infantry rifles were the limiting factor; accuracy could not be improved unless and until the sights were improved. A general by the name of Patridge developed a rifle sight based upon Isaac Newton's treatise on optics, Principia. Experiments showed that the new pattern sight, maximized a soldier's ability to hit. It is now known as the "Patridge Pattern" sight. It was radical in that it consisted of a square post front sight and a square notch rear, resulting in a sight picture shown below.

It is important to note that the width of the square notch should appear to the shooter to be at least three times the width if the front sight. That means the width of the space to the left and the right of the front sight should appear to the shooter to be at least as wide as the front sight appears. A little wider is actually better as it allows more light to pass through the notch to the eye, reducing the percentage of the light that is due to glare.

The front sight must also be wide enough for the shooter to clearly see the flaat at the top of the sight. This pattern minimizes the effects of sight glare and maximizes the ability to see the sights clearly, as shown below.

The Patridge pattern sight has been shown to be the best we can make our open, iron sights. But to get the most out of those sights we must also use them properly.

I've been taught to use a two-stage sighting process for best accuracy. First we obtain our sight picture. The role of the rear sight is to get our face where it belongs. It lines up our eye with the axis of the barrel. Once we have properly positioned our eye for the right sight picture, the role of the rear sight is largely completed. Now we can focus only on the front sight, keeping our face exactly where the rear sight/front sight picture put it. We line up the front sight with our aiming point and fire. Keeping this two step process in mind will alleviate the problem of not being able to keep rear sight. front sight and target all in focus concurrently. The brightest region in the rear sight notch is the center.

Finally in sunny conditions the rifle always shoots away from the sun. ALWAYS! I had the opportunity to demonstrate this at the Lancaster Rendezvous last year as I completed in the "Over the Log" shoot. It was a 100- yard, 3 shot match at a mark about 6 inches in diameter. My rifle is sighted in to be dead-on at 75 yards. That makes it about an inch high at 50, an inch high at 25, and 3 inches low at 100 yards. I held 8 inches high. The first shot was 2 inches high and centered. Then the clouds pealed off to the east and left a bright sun shining down on my left shoulder. Foolishly I used the exact same hold. The second and third shots were a foot off the first, low and to the right. The glare off the sights made all the difference. It made my sights look like this:

That looks pretty good, right? But take away the glare from the sun and the sights were actually lined up like:

So never sight your rifle in on a sunny day unless you are under a roof of some sort or have a shader on each of your sights. If you do you will only hit if the sun is in the same location in the sky as it was when you sighted in.

I am NOT a good shot! But I can improve my shooting by making sure my eyes have it. I cut my sights to a Patridge pattern with the ample space between the front sight and the vertical side of the square notch in the rear sight. This gives my eyes lots of light to work with. I make sure that the silver blade front sight tapers away from my eye and towards the target. That reduces unwanted glare light. I carefully guard the layer of tarnish on that front sight and on sunny days coat it with soot from a match. That also reduces the unwanted glare light. Finally I use a two step aiming routine that allows my rather experienced eyes to focus on the front sight. Each of these steps makes its own incremental improvement in each shot. Taken together the improve my shooting. They can also improve yours.

To shoot well- the eyes have it.