MyRovers.com

Believe it or not, use a good hole saw. With aluminium use a faster speed than you would for steel. Drill press (or mill) is best but a good angle 1/2 inch hand held drill will work. Clean chips frequently. Add some lube and have a good long handle to prevent winding up the hand held drill. I have cut large holes up to 4 inches in diameter in 1/2 steel and 1 inch aluminium as well as in stainless thinwall stainless steel with this method. Keeping chips cleared and tool cool is a must for tool life. An eye for perpendicular is also important when doing it hand-held to avoid catching on the cut through at the end of the cut. Of course a pilot hole for guidance is essential. Sometimes it is advisable to predrill a pilot hole and then to replace the hole saw’s pilot drill bit with a piece of the same size drill rod notched to fit the locking set screw. The smooth drill rod won’t enlarge the pilot hole as a drill bit may and keep the hole saw cutting trueer than would otherwise be the case, especially if you do not keep the process perpinduclar. Also, be sure to stop the saw from revolving before you remove it to clean chips. Then do not begin turning it until it is back in the cut. Do not rush it. Clean chipe often. But, do not be afraid to put some pressure on the down cut as a continuously cut chip is easier on the saw teeth than constantly wearing without really cutting, which builds up heat, but gets little progress. Remember, a lot of the heat is carried away with the chips, just like with a drill bit. The hole saw has more trouble clearing the chips, though. You hjave to help by stopping and removing them. Keep the saw cool. You will develope a feel for the right feed pressureis you have a mechanical affinity.

But, I have one more caution: Ease up on the downward pressure as you near the end of the cutting depth. It is also possible to turn the piece over to cut in from the opposite side, but I would advise against it. The two seldom align as well as a one-sided cut and cleanup is always needed. If extreem accuracy is not needed hand-held works well. Clean up can be accomplished with cartrige rolls, sanding sleeves or large cross pads (all are abrasive tools.) Of course if you have a mill or slow turning drill press you can use a fly cutter for clean-up. But, NEVER HAND HOLD A FLY CUTTRER! And they are for enlarging holes, not for making them. If you have a mill or drill press a hole cutter that uses a cutting tool similar to that in a fly cutter, but held at 90 degrees to the bar (parallel to the hole axis) will work if you are careful with the feed rate.

Misc Info

The Shower Skirt attaches to the bottom of a Series 2 or 3 tent by means of a male/female welt system. There are 4 aluminum extrusions (2 short, 2 long) that screw to the underside of the tent half that hangs out from the truck. The 2 long ones mount along the panel sides from the hinge to the panel corner. The 2 short ones mount from each corner toward the ladder. This builds a perimeter around the bottom of the overhanging panel. There are 3 seperate panels that zip together to create the skirt. At the top of each panel they have created a welt of fabric. That is simply fabric wrapped around a piece of cord. This welt is the male half that slides into the female extrusion mounted on the tent. Each panel then hangs independently, and can be connected with zippers at the corners. There is also some extra material on each side panel to run up the sides of the the vehicle a little ways too. It come with stake loops at the bottom to hold it to the ground securely.

Misc Info

The seams on the inner tents should not have leaked. I would have your brother either rub them with a Bee’s Wax Bar http://www.beeyondthehive.com/ or use a seam seal.

With all tents it’s best to be pro active in the area of water resistance and seam leakage. The alternative isn’t so pleasant. To test the tent deploy it, remove the mattress, and use a garden hose to simulate rain. Having someone inside checking for leaks is always a plus. If you find leakage along the seams use the wax or seam sealer. If the fabric is seeping try one of the waterproofing products such as 3M.

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The material itself normally is not a problem. The stitching can allow water through as the hole the needle punches in the material and the thread are different sizes. With canvas tents you were always told to soak down the tent so the stitching would swell up and plug the hole made by the needle. With synthetic or blended materials or thread there is little or no water absorption so the swelling does not take place.

You don’t see that many problems with leaking seams, but if they do occur seam seal or wax takes care of it. The nice thing about wax is it works when the fabric is wet.

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The real deal is 303 Products High Tech Fabric Guard. It is avalable in marine shops and direct from 303 Products –

303 Products website

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Never had to re waterproof an Eezi Awn. If I had to I probably look into the Niki Wax products or the 303 Products High Tech Fabric Guard MikeS was referring to. Something specific to breathable materials.

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It is difficult to make a single wall tent keep the rain water out but still breathe. I’ve done a lot of work with the Maggiolina’s fabric through the years, it has a DWR finish (durable water repellant) but even it’s finish does wear out with time.

Here are some thoughts, they are highly subjective and always subject to change.

I’m not a fan of seam sealant, it too wears, best to design a tent so the seams aren’t in critical places. You will sometimes find seams on the folding rooftents. The good fabrics for this type of tent have a cotton content, which is good because the water causes the fabric to swell and close up to be water repellant. The problem is it stretches the seams, allowing water to come in there. We redesigned AutoHome’s OverCamp tent many years ago because the fabric was reinforced at the peak, for wear. If it rained over 4 inches an hour, the tent would develop drips at the threads, even though this wasn’t a seam. None of the OverCamp or OverLand tents have seams in the roof for this reason. We also use a “winter hood” that turns the tent into a double walled, four season tent, for these conditions.

Here is what I recommend for the Maggiolina which uses a special Drylon fabric. Drylon is a synthetic polyester, so it doesn’t absorb water and swell. With time, the DWR finish (durable water repellant) will wear and water will not bead up and the fabric will get wet. The Drylon needs the DWR renewed. There are several products that can do this. Scotch Guard by 3M tends to attract dirt and dirt hampers the DWR finish. I recommend the 303 finishes over Scotch Guard or NikWax for this reason. Clean the fabric really well, 303 has a special cleaner for this. Apply the 303 finish, and leave the tent out in the sun on a hot day. This is critical, the heat will let the 303 finish bond to the fabric. I will use a hair dryer in the winter, but it doesn’t work as well. The Maggiolina’s design is excellent for continuous wet weather, but you can also get a winter hood to make it a double walled tent.

The Columbus is something of a hybrid tent. Drylon isn’t as good because the sloping walls need more water repellence. This tent uses Airtex fabric, which has a special PTFE finish, similar to what GoreTex now uses. Pasquale is right, it doesn’t breathe as well, but you never have to worry about water coming in. I have noticed some condensation in very wet cold conditions. If this is a concern, again, use a winter hood and turn it into a four season tent.

Martyn brought up condensation. This will occur anytime there is a cold surface that warm moist air can condense on. Solutions are breathable fabrics, and insulation. I’ve seen rooftents that are “waterproof” that will turn into little rain forests once the water condenses on the fabric, not pleasant. Any surface that gets cold needs to be insulated. Many rooftents have plywood bases, sounds bad but actually insulates quite well. Look under your mattress, if it is wet, you tent probably didn’t leak, that’s condensation. A good rooftent will have an insulated base. Another of my pet peaves is ridgepoles that aren’t sheathed and insulated. Fine if you camp in the desert, but water will condense all night and drip on you, even if it isn’t raining.

Oh, Pasquale, you mentioned an awning for a Columbus, yes we have them, we use a parawing design that goes over the whole tent, lots of protection, you just attach to the top and it deploys when you open the Columbus, Mike can set you up.

Almost forgot, we have a new experimental mesh that goes under your mattress. It is about a half inch thick and acts like a box spring, has a little cush, very little weight, but allows air to pass under your mattress. Our guy in Germany developed it and I’ve been testing in in marine conditions, it works. Stock is really limited but we do have some. Should work on any brand of rooftent no just AutoHome.

Hope this helps explain some of the science and design issues. Rooftents are a challenge they are very different from ground tents.

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The 3M Scotch Guard will not hurt the fabric, think of the fabric like a mesh or lattice, something to support the DWR. I talked at length with the chemist at 303 products and it is perfect for Dralon. As long as you don’t have any big holes, should work as new. I tested 303 against salt water and have been very impressed so far.

All Rovers, Camping Trailer, Misc Info

Common problem…
See http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/packet-too-large.html

Edit /etc/my.cnf and do restart mysql with ’service mysqld restart’

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B.1.2.10. Packet too large

A communication packet is a single SQL statement sent to the MySQL server, a single row that is sent to the client, or a binary log event sent from a master replication server to a slave.

The largest possible packet that can be transmitted to or from a MySQL 5.0 server or client is 1GB.

When a MySQL client or the mysqld server receives a packet bigger than max_allowed_packet bytes, it issues a Packet too large error and closes the connection. With some clients, you may also get a Lost connection to MySQL server during query error if the communication packet is too large.

Both the client and the server have their own max_allowed_packet variable, so if you want to handle big packets, you must increase this variable both in the client and in the server.

If you are using the mysql client program, its default max_allowed_packet variable is 16MB. To set a larger value, start mysql like this:

shell> mysql –max_allowed_packet=32M

That sets the packet size to 32MB.

The server’s default max_allowed_packet value is 1MB. You can increase this if the server needs to handle big queries (for example, if you are working with big BLOB columns). For example, to set the variable to 16MB, start the server like this:

shell> mysqld –max_allowed_packet=16M

You can also use an option file to set max_allowed_packet. For example, to set the size for the server to 16MB, add the following lines in an option file:

[mysqld]
max_allowed_packet=16M

It is safe to increase the value of this variable because the extra memory is allocated only when needed. For example, mysqld allocates more memory only when you issue a long query or when mysqld must return a large result row. The small default value of the variable is a precaution to catch incorrect packets between the client and server and also to ensure that you do not run out of memory by using large packets accidentally.

You can also get strange problems with large packets if you are using large BLOB values but have not given mysqld access to enough memory to handle the query. If you suspect this is the case, try adding ulimit -d 256000 to the beginning of the mysqld_safe script and restarting mysqld.

Misc Info