Hi Hivers! How are you today? Is your job okay?
Today I had an exciting working day with my partner at my company. Those who follow me will know that my work is designing travel tents. Do you know anything about travel tents? Oh, of course, I'm asking those who don't travel and never go camping. As for those who travel and camp often, I'm sure that you are no stranger to tents.
It is not only a small portable house, but also a silent friend of ours on every camping trip. It protects us from rain, sun, dust, and insects, etc.
So, have you ever wondered how to make these friends? Today I'm going to show you know how we make a tent.
1. What does a set of tents include?
A complete set of tents will include an inner tent, fly tent, one pole set, carry bag, and peg set.
Inner tents: on the tent wall are frequently sewed with mesh or breathable fabric to create an airy space.
Fly tents: are usually sewn with coating PU fabric, which can be waterproof, fireproof, and even can insulate.
Pole: used to set up the tent.
The pegs have the effect of fixing the tent on the ground, making it not move.
The material and materials of each tent will determine its price.
2. How to make a tent?
Set up the test sample
When asked to make a sample, the customer will send us a sample spec sheet, which has the specifications and structural shape of the tent. We will have to check this document in detail and proceed to make the pole.
The tents are basic in design, having two long straight poles, constructing a pole set is quite straightforward. I only need to connect the poles according to the size I need.
However, tents with complicated forms require that the pole flexes, making the pole set more difficult. I have to identify the segments that need to be bent and begin bending them to the curvature of the angle that I have calculated and defined earlier.
After completing the pole set, I construct a tent model with the shape desired by the buyer. This step is really not simple, and it is also quite time-consuming for tents with discordant and complex forms. It requires meticulousness and high precision, down to the millimeter. Many times when I had finished building a tent model, I had to declare to everyone that no one could go near that area and no one was allowed to touch it because it only takes a little bit that I have to set up again. Haha. 😄
After building the model with a pole, I have to calculate, measure every detail and draw it on the computer. Each step must be meticulously planned and executed.
I don't need to build up the model for some tent designs because I can imagine its multi-dimensional space and immediately draw it without measuring on the model.
After drawing the details on the computer, I had to organize the diagrams and print them out. The arrangement of the fabric cutting scheme also needs to be calculated to save fabric as much as possible. It will be a waste of fabric if the marker you do have a lot of unused space. That thing is not allow.
I will take the marker to the cutting table to conduct cutting and sewing of the test sample. For this test sample, the fabric and materials used won't be exact. Based on this sample, I can see where I should adjust to make my pattern more correct and beautiful.
When everything is ok, I will let cutting the fabric right to make the PP sample and send it to the customer for review.
Sewing sample
Sewing a tent is not an easy job. It requires many years of experience because the nature of the seams on the tent is not straight lines like a shirt or pants. It's long lines with many different shapes. You need to have sewing techniques to control and adjust the seams to have a beautiful tent.
Here is our pattern maker with more than 20 years of experience. Her job is very stressful. Sometimes, she had to work extra till 11 p.m. to produce several samples according to my and the customer's quality criteria.
Press tape and test the sample with water.
The sample, after sewing, will be pressed on tape. It keeps the tent waterproof, and we can use it in rain or snow conditions. The tape pressing process is the final stage of the tent-making process.
After this stage is over, we will check its waterproofness. We will put the sample under an artificial rain system. This system will produce rain with increasing rainfall over two hours. If the tent is completely waterproof, it means it is satisfactory. Then we could send it to customers for review.
If the customer approves the sample, the manufacturer will begin mass production to export it to the nations requested by the partner.
3. Some tent brands I've made
After more than four years here, I've had the opportunity to engage with and work with several of the world's well-known tent brands. Such as The North Face, Robens, Snowpeak, Northpeak, Vaude, Nemo, Rei, Kelty, Kovea, Orwell, ALPS, Marmot…. in which Marmot is our big customer.
Each tent brand has its design style, quality, and price. If you're interested, I'll write an article to review some famous tent brands that I know.
These are the Robens tents: I quite like the designs of this brand.
These are Marmot's tents: Marmot is a difficult client, I have a hard time working with them. Marmot's designs have a lot of irregularities, but they always force us to do it according to their requirements. However, Marmot's tents are so beautiful in terms of structure and color.
Here is an impressive and expensive tent from The North Face. It costs $5,500 on its website. A partner of mine made this sample.
It will not be possible to say all the hardships and difficulties when making a tent. Many times we were stressed and wanted to give up this job because it was too stressful. But when I see the tents I made used by people over the world, I feel happy.
Each tent contains a lot of our love and effort, sometimes even sweat and tears. So if you own a tent, cherish it, consider it as a companion in your every trip. And if you're using one of my tent designs, I'd be grateful for that too.
