Joe - it seemed, with mine at least, that most of the tension was toward the second half of the stretch. I made a short 3" tensioner and it it didn't seem practical to me. It might work though. 4" would be better, but I don't have any sections 4" left over, so I can't test that.

Joe,
If you make them short you don't have as much flexibility to move the peg around to find a place it will go in. You'd save some weight, though mine weigh less than 0.4 ounces.

Dana,
I don't use any extra guy line. Fasten the buggers to the tent guy out loops.

Edited by redleader on 03/18/2009 14:36:27 MDT.

"but depends on if you want to avoid adding extra guyline."

Yep, i saw that from your pictures. Nice shelter by the way!

Dana,
Thanks, I really like this tent. I haven't added guy lines at the shoulder points on the fly. When I do I probably wouldn't use tensioners for these lines. The stress on the shoulder points is transferred directly to the poles and I prefer that connection to allow no slack.

Denis,

Conversation diverged a bit from where i was originally headed.

What i meant by my comment to Joe, was that if you make the tensioner long enough, you won't have to tie more guyline to it in order to use it.

Another alternative is to not make the second bowline, but just make a knot instead and leave the guyline free. You can have x number of feet free to hang for tying out.

- Dana

Hmmmm. I envision MYOG Guyline Tensioners v1.01. Back to the drawing board.

I'm heading home in a minute. I'll take a picture and show you exactly how the JRB tensioners are setup.

Here are some pictures of my JRB tensioners. Turns out they're about 5" Joe! They stretch to around ten inches. The line has a simple knot and the tube is held in place by a cheap black zip tie. Never had problems, but i've only used them on a few trips.

Let the tutorial draft begin Denis :P

Edited by Naman919 on 03/20/2009 08:16:32 MDT.

I ordered 6' of red theraband tubing on EBay, so I'll make some. Cost more to ship than the tubing cost though.

I'm a bit out of the loop here. I don't quite "get" tensioners. When I stake out a tent (say w/Spectra cord) I just pull to maximal tension and set the stakes. With a tensioner you couldn't pull to that maximal tension, and although I can see the tent keeping relatively static tension, it doesn't seem like the canopy would be as taut as if pitching "normally." Thoughts, feedback?

Brad,

No problem. Check this.

So what you do is attach the self-tensioner to any tie out point you'd like. Pull the tensioner as far as you can, essentially to the length of the excess guyline w/in the tubing. Now you have your "normal" tension if the rubber tube wasn't present.

Skip ahead to 2am when your shelter wants to sag under dew/rain. Now the slack of the shelter sagging is pulled in by the self-tensioner wanting to spring back to original size. Essentially it's tightening up the line as if you went out yourself and adjusted your taut-line hitch or whatever tensioning method you use.

Make sense?

- Dana

"Skip ahead to 2am when your shelter wants to sag under dew/rain. Now the slack of the shelter sagging is pulled in by the self-tensioner wanting to spring back to original size. Essentially it's tightening up the line as if you went out yourself and adjusted your taut-line hitch or whatever tensioning method you use."

And all the while you're snug in your shelter, "sawing logs".

Does anybody have any idea how long these things will last? I made some a couple of nights ago, but got to thinking...If they're always pulled to their max, will they eventually just be a long piece of silicone (or rubber)? Either way, I'm planning on using them till they fail.

Kyle,

I really wonder this myself too, except i'm concerned with a different cause of failure.

I was riggin' up my tarp with a new guyline configuration and while putting back on the self-tensioners I started thinking about how/when they'd break. Then i got to thinking about how long the tensioners could withstand storage before becoming dry/brittle.

IMHO they're going to dry out and crack before they fatigue from being strained constantly.

But hey, they're cheap and easy to make. The next ones i'll make myself and I figure, if they last a season, great. If they last 4-5 trips, i can handle that too.

What does everyone else think?

- Dana

I think the latex will have a different life span than the theraband I used. I don't know which will be longer, but theraband is meant to be stretched over and over and over for workouts.

edited for spelling

Edited by mn-backpacker on 03/20/2009 08:26:56 MDT.

my JRB are theraband, so i'm in your boat.

I'm planning on using therabands too. These are similar to the exercise bands that came with my P90X. I've had those over 2 years, and through use and non-use, I have had no problems.

The first pair of these that I made used the tubing from an old slingshot I found lying in the weeds. It had been there for a while, as the tubing at the "pocket" fastening had rotted away. I trimmed off the rotted parts and subjected the rest to a good strong tug. There were no "dry" parts or cracking evident, so I went ahead and used the tubing. Two of the tensioners shown in the above photos are those original units. We'll see if they make it through the summer. If not I'll whip out a couple of replacements.

Regarding the use of bungee tensioners: They're only bungee. If they fail there's nothing left. If the surgical tubing of the Auto Tensioner fails, you still have the internal guyline. Just reset the stakes, and you're good.

Edited by redleader on 03/20/2009 14:19:45 MDT.

A suggestion for how far to stretch a tensioner:
The tensioner has two purposes, to take up the sag that develops as rain, dew or insensible perspiration causes the fly, tent, tarp, or canopy to stretch and sag; and to absorb wind shock to reduce stress on the fly and its components including stakes. If you pull a tensioner as tightly as possible, it has no reserve left to absorb wind shock. If the tensioner must be stretched to its full extension to get the tarp/tent set up properly, you need a stiffer tensioner.

Actually, tensioners have a third, specialized use: to keep hammock flies properly tensioned when your weight on the hammock would otherwise cause the fly to sag.

JRB has been making these STL for three years now....all of the ones we personnaly use are doing fing with no apparent stretch set in... Only two reported failures to date.... one was the second knot pulled out of the theraband.... as noted above the line was still usable.... The second failure was in the vicinity of the artic circle when the theraband froze, then the stove pipe it was securing caused a nylon sting failure....

They will eaasily stay resilant through a 6 months thru hike...As mentioned above they are meant to stretch, relax and stretch again repetitively.

Again, remember that I'm biased but these are just facts I've observed or had reported to me.

Pan