7/17/92 For all those other gentles, who, like me, are still tent-shopping for Pennsic.... Sears is having a sale on all tents - generally 10% to 20% off. They have a Hilary 8X10 cabin or 8X8 dome for 89.95. However, the Sears in Burlington Mall is renovating and does not have a camping section right now. meriadoc ----------------------- 7/17/92 For those of you willing to go a bit further afield in search of bargains, the Building #19 in Manchester, NH currently has a large selection of tents, both dome type and cabin type. The price range is something on the order of $20 to $100-$150 (for immense cabin type tents). To get to Building #19 1/8, take exit 6 on 93N. Turn right at the bottom of the exit ramp, and go straight until you run out of road (< 1 mile). The street ends in a T-intersection, at which you should turn right, onto Mammoth Rd. Building #19 1/8 is roughly 1/4 mile on the left. A'isha bint Jamil kathy@XN.LL.MIT.EDU ------------------- 7/17/92 Once upon a Pennsic, Lord Aristotle bought a very large tent, around 10x12, from Grossman's Outlet. It was a lovely tent, with headroom, and a beautiful one piece floor that came up about a foot on the sides. We had a Tent Waterproofing party, for all our tents, and we gooped up the seams as well as we could, let them dry, and drenched them with a garden hose to check for obvious leaks. At Pennsic 14, Hurricane David was kind enough to brush us with his northernmost tendrils, and some extraordinary rain came through. Aristotle spent a good portion of the storm outside, fixing things. When he was through, he entered his tent, to discover that while the seams were good, the fabric was fairly porous, and the one piece flooring made a lovely 4 inch deep swimming pool. What good is any guarantee now? No matter where you buy your tent, if you don't waterproof it, seams and fabric, you will find out how good the guarantee really is only when it rains. Best of luck. Tibor (who waterproofed his tent this past April, again) Mark Schuldenfrei (schuldy@progress.com) ---------------------- 7/17/92 That was an entertaining and USEFULL story, Tibor. (and reminded me to add "waterproof the tent " to my list of pre-Pennsic tasks...right after, "buy the tent") Actually, I was thinking of other issues than waterproofing... Once upon a time, I and my Lord had a very nice tent. We waterproofed it and were generally nice to it. We took it to a couple of Pennsics, and then, one fine summer, we made our way to a July 4th camping event. Well...no soon had we put it up, and stood back to admire the affect, when, we noticed the roof seam was a little...well...odd. Close inspection revealed that the entire seam was bad and the roof soon parted company with the rest of the tent. This was a problem - particularly since there was no way to get a new tent that weekend. So, my most gracious lord acquired some tent thread, crawled inside the now-pseudo-tent and resewed the roof by hand. It was more that sort of problem I was wondering about ... Meriadoc (who really is going to buy a tent very soon, but we just bought a house and I'm tired of buying dwellings!) ----------------------- 7/17/92 Well the best is going to be from a HIGH PRICE companies such as LL Bean or EMS. STORY: Gregory and Emay from Endewearde bought a tent from Bean's... used it a year and discovered that the SCA demands LOTS of SPACE for STUFF in tents... went back shopping and mentioned their delemma to the salesman. He arranged to take their old tent back at FULL VALUE and trade them up to the largest tent they had. Another company would not have taken the original tent or at least pro-rate the tent returned... Bean's has a "satisfaction guarantee" (no timelimit). I have "simular related" experience with EMS. ALTERNATIVE: Period tents/pavilions (Tent Masters or...) - these are usually wonderfully durable canvas tents that look great, are hard to transport and maybe hard to setup alone but LOOK GREAT and are the BEST THING to have at Pennsic (IMHO). You won't get blown down in these tents but you have to be carefull about prep'ing them and waterproofing seems. PT/P owners: Carl and Barbara (Fredric/Nicollette (sp?)) can give you more/better opinions. I hear our Baron/Baroness are buying a P.T./P. but that is still a rumor since I have not seen it. Another idea is to rent a Grimm's tent -- its big, ugly, and durable. I had good luck w/ the Grimm's I rented for the Baronial encampment years ago... These last two alternate's are "a little late" in the Pennsic prep. buying season but... good luck! danulf ---------------------------- 7/17/92 Hmmmm, I think my tent resembles that remark... While picking up tent stakes today, (24, yard long, inch thick iron nails) I learned that there is an annual flyer published by the Stamford Tent Co. every fall wherein they attempt to sell of some of their older tents. I will try to get on their mailing list and I will send a copy to anyone that is interested. Yes you too can own your own circus tent... :) The Lynn Building 19 store is also selling dome and cabin tents, most seem used and I would check them out to make certain that all the parts are included. The brands in the pile ranged from K-Mart specials to a couple of fairly nice ones. These are probably returns or rental units, if you do buy one set it up in the parking lot and keep going back in until you have all the pieces. The seal it! John McGuire -------------------------- 7/20/92 Tents.... We spend Saturday tent shopping... Here's some info for anyone else who needs a tent.. Sears does have some 4/5/6 man Hillary tents on sale. They are quite cheap, given the size. The 6 man is $220 from $280. They seem reasonable and have nice built-in floors. There is a Sears in Cambridge. EMS has a few tents on sale, but there was nothing we were interested in, so I have no comments. Hilton Tent City (near Boston Garden) is having a sale. They also have zillions and zillions of tents - and the staff is pretty helpful. That's where we ended up getting our tent. They have a nice range of big tents and a good selection of misc. camping stuff. Meriadoc ------------------------- 7/20/92 Caveat: Aleksandr and I found that Hilton's prices were *very* high on some items, notably coolers. Compare prices before you buy! Yelizaveta ----------------------- 7/21/92 Gee, Justin, I'm pretty sure K-Mart carries Scotchguard. If not, try a good supermarket -- probably in the laundry-aids section. If all else fails, I *know* the 5-and-10 in Cliftondale Square (Saugus) has it. --- Steffan steffan@pro-angmar.alfalfa.com OR steffan@world.std.com ---------------------- 7/27/92 I called the tent place that John Dillon mentioned, and have a copy of their flier, listing surplus tents they have, and the regular prices for them. This is the 1992 list, and is slightly dated, but is still of some interest. They do have an auction coming in September, and will send me mail before then. Just to give you an idea of what they have, here are a few items from the list. Their "Fiesta tops" are sideless canopies (I believe) and the pavillions have sides. Their prices do not seem to include side or center poles, ropes, or anything. I'm not going to bother listing vinyl items, although if you want them, they have more of those than canvas. Remember, all of these are used (running about 5-10 years). Steel stakes: $8.50 - $12.50 each. 8' side poles, 9.50 each Centerpoles, priced by size, no sample price given. 4 x 8 hardwood dance floor pieces, $120 each (Justin, you listening? :-) Colors seem to be variation on white, yellow/white, green/white, blue/white, pink/white, pink (bleh) If you're like me, you'll think big. An average 2 bedroom apartment is about 800 - 1000 square feet, in Boston. [1] So, a 30 x 30 foot pavillion is as big as a two bedroom apartment. (On the other hand, the apartment has closet space.) Sizes for Fiesta Tops, price ranges and quantity are: 12 x 12 $165 (1) 14 x 14 $111 - $289 (6) 16 x 16 $169 - $243 (5) 20 x 20 $153 - $575 (25) 30 x 30 $307 - $825 (14) Pole Tents: 30 x 45 $433 - $813 (3) 30 x 60 $491 - $3175 (31) 30 x 65 $519 (1) 30 x 75 $607 - $1329 (4) 30 x 80 $911 - $4405 (1) 30 x 90 $1365 (1) 30 x 105 $1530 (1) 40 x 40 $773 - $3391 (4) 40 x 60 $631 - $3087 (6) 40 x 80 $1681 - $5377 (9) 40 x 100 $1797 (1) 40 x 110 $7269 (1) 40 x 120 $2469 (1) 50 x 80 $1118 - $1147 (2) 50 x 100 $2105 - $6801 (12) 50 x 125 $2001 (1) 60 x 90 $2177 (1) Tibor -- Mark Schuldenfrei (schuldy@progress.com) Back of the envelope calculations: Bedroom: 12 x 12 = 144 Bedroom: 12 x 12 = 144 Bathroom 6 x 8 = 48 Kitchen 10 x 10 = 100 Living room 10 x 15 = 150 Dining room 10 x 12 = 120 ------------------------- Result: 706 --------------------------------- 7/27/92 If one of you should decide to purchase one of the tents listed, lower prices for tent stakes and tent poles are available. Facella Forge Inc. 10 Methuen St. Lawrence, MA 01842 (508) 685-4064 36" long, 1" thick, 2" head, painted steel stakes. $7.50 Side poles: 2x3 $3 12" spike $0.50 Any supplier of moderately clear pine 2x3s (ie not Grossman's) can give you the side posts. Similiar prices are available for hardwoods if you go directly to the mill. Unfortunately my oak poles are a wee bit heavy this year... Center poles will usually have to be purchased as separate pieces and joined with a sleeve or a plate, unless you have a fair sized truck to cart a 16' beam around John McGuire ----------------------