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How To Build A Trampoline Tent
With a large family reunion coming up, Steve Gilchrist, of Leesburg, Georgia, needed a large tent to put up in his yard but he didn't want to pay for a commercial unit. He solved the problem by building a 20-ft. long, 15-ft. wide tent using the frame from an old trampoline.
  Both ends of the tent are open, as are the sides up to 6 ft. The top is a blue tarp that's secured by bunge cords.
  "I ended up building three of these tents for our family and also sold another one to a friend who uses it as a boat shelter. A fifth one went to North Carolina for our next family reunion," says Gilchrist.
  He started with a 13-ft. dia. trampoline. The ring was originally built in four sections that were designed to slip together. He took the sections apart and used two of them to form a half moon at each end of the tent, leaving the 4-ft. long legs attached to act as purlins. He cut off the horizontal, ground-level pipes between the legs and placed them upright on the ground, then stuck the half moons into them and bolted them together.
  To complete the shelter, he bought five 21-ft. long metal pipes designed for a chain link fence. There are two pipes on each side of the tent and one on top. He slipped them over the 4-ft. trampoline legs to form the roof. Then he bought a 16 by 20-ft. blue tarp and bunge corded it to both sides.
  "It really works well and saved me hundreds of dollars," says Gilchrist. "I paid $125 for the five top rails. The only other expense was for the tarp and bunge cords. The tent is big enough that if I wanted I could put a big pontoon under it.
  "To take the tent apart I just unbolt the legs and the top pipe and then let the half moons down onto the ground. The half moons don't need to be anchored because the frame is so heavy. It hasn't blown away in over four years."
  Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Steve Gilchrist, 692 Grave Springs Road, Leesburg, Georgia 31763 (ph 229 439-8795 or 229 894-0372; shgilchrist1@mchsi.com).


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2009 - Volume #33, Issue #5