Carbon tent poles...beware!

[ElaineB]

If you are heading out cycle camping using a tent with carbon tent poles....beware. I put my Lightwave tent up (luckily) in the garden before doing a 2 week cycle camping tour and when removing the front carbon pole it snapped. I then removed the rear carbon pole and the same thing happened....but in EXACTLY the same place as the front one broke. I am a 'seasoned' cycle camper and I had used this tent only twice, I treated the poles very lightly and they removed without any pressure placed on them. The tent had been stored in a dry cupboard without anything 'on' it or near it. It appears that carbon is not as strong as once believed. Lightwave tents no longer use carbon poles in their tents.....which really says it all. When I brought it to their attention their attitude was....'tough'!!!! So much for the 'lifetime guarantee' for the original owner, which I am. So stick with aluminium poles even if they are a tad heavier or take a pole sheath (2 if you have a Lightwave tent) 'just in case'. Happy camping.
Photo shows the broken parts of both pole in the 'same' place.

[phil parker]

I broke the main tent pole on my Easton Kilo in some extremely gusty weather up in Scotland last year. Luckily Easton replaced free of charge, but you're right, they do have limitations, I wouldn't have expected that to happen with aluminium poles. They're probably more susceptible to damage even when stored!

[pjclinch]

Carbon tends to fail catastrohpically from cracks, where aluminium is more likely to bend.

More recent carbon confections tend to be less prone to this sort of thing, I suspect (but don't really know) that resins and coatings used now tend to protect them from cracks getting started. However, carbon poles are only ever used where weight is more important than reliability.

It is the case that aluminium poles can die too. Be careful in particular to put your poles together rather than let the shock-cord pull them together, and always give them a rinse if you've been camping by the seaside (salt corrosion, and yes, it sound far fetched, but Terra Nova have refused a friend a replacement on this basis for Quasar poles used on sea kayaking trips).

Various companies have experimented with fancy things like scandium alloys, but everyone seems to be gravitating back to DAC or Easton aluminium alloy poles for top-end use and I suspect there's a reason for that!

Pete.

[foxyrider]

I was slightly surprised to find that the majority of ultra light tents use aluminium poles rather than any form of composite. Weight for weight there isn't much weight difference - the Al are tubes as opposed to solid bar in carbon or fibreglass.

This helps reduce stress although they can suffer stress damage, a pole tube can keep you in action if there is a breakage.

[Sweep]

a pole tube can keep you in action if there is a breakage.

after some recent experiences with a Vango tent I'd also take a spare section (or two) of pole and a hacksaw blade (you can do without the hacksaw handle) to cut them to length.

[iviehoff]

I was slightly surprised to find that the majority of ultra light tents use aluminium poles rather than any form of composite. Weight for weight there isn't much weight difference - the Al are tubes as opposed to solid bar in carbon or fibreglass.
This helps reduce stress although they can suffer stress damage, a pole tube can keep you in action if there is a breakage.

If you've ever had a tent with Easton aircraft aluminium alloy poles, such as a Hilleberg tent, you wouldn't be surprised. Much more capable of taking stresses than the aluminium of cheap tents, whilst retaining more rigidity than the flexible composites I've encountered. Brilliant stuff. Mine got a bit of a set, no worse, from camping in a terrible storm in the Icelandic interior, when most other tents erected there were just destroyed. Some people with sufficiently flexible composite poles, tent surviving, tent was more or less flattened to the ground for the duration. Fortunately it didn't rain, so they didnt' get wet.

[pjclinch]

Point of order, Hille use DAC rather than Easton, but both have earned an excellent reputation and nothing in carbon has yet managed that.

Pete.

[RonK]

Point of order, Hille use DAC rather than Easton, but both have earned an excellent reputation and nothing in carbon has yet managed that.

Pete.

However, Hilleberg do recommend using double poles in harsh conditions.

[NATURAL ANKLING]

Hi,

I was slightly surprised to find that the majority of ultra light tents use aluminium poles rather than any form of composite. Weight for weight there isn't much weight difference - the Al are tubes as opposed to solid bar in carbon or fibreglass.

This helps reduce stress although they can suffer stress damage, a pole tube can keep you in action if there is a breakage.

I have not seen any CF poles but quality tents use Aluminium Alloy, at least they did from the early eighties and maybe before
Before that Steel tubes like family tents still do today although Alumnium Alloy have crept in here too.
Fibreglass are on the cheap tents and do not tolerate bending well and are fragile, also all the fibre glass poles I have seen break after 2nd or third use, they must be the cheapest to make for the manufactures to use

If you have a tent with fibreglass poles change them to Aluminium Tubes now.
The vango Poles Alu Alloy tubes do seem to suffer breakage easy compared to early stuff which I still have from my early eighties Blacks Tent, which I used to replace some Fibreglass poles in a Lidl tent.

I think that the Vango poles are a bit Thin in the wall thickness / quality not so good, replacement Alu poles are expensive so converting to Alu from fibreglass might double the cost of tent

CF poles .......dont go there, needs more developement I.M.O.

Mini Tube Cutter, from £ 1.85 on aution sites, though Junior hacksaw has other uses, take some abrasive fine paper to smooth the burrs, swiss file would do but the abrasive paper (wet and dry) wont gouge the metal at all in the wrong hands. Do a practice cut on old tube before you need it.

[Vantage]

I can't even look at the word "carbon" without thinking 'accident waiting to happen'.

[foxyrider]

Both my Vaude tents have Al poles, quite happy, never had a total failure although some sections did need replacing after being wind flattened once too often! (horrible night spent with the roof of the tent flattened over my face!)

[mrjemm]

I must learn not to let the sections snap together on the elastic.
I must learn not to let the sections snap together on the elastic.
I must learn not to let the sections snap together on the elastic...

Interesting to compare the thoughts of reliability and so in between carbon and Al poles, with cycle frame discussions recently.