Da Weekend, and Tent Stuff
Mar. 22nd, 2025 08:31 amNot much specifically planned for this weekend. We took down the last of the Christmas decorations yesterday in honor of the Equinox. ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
shalmestere spent much of yesterday laminating dozens of paper snowflakes for easier mounting and storage until next year, and there are more of them to go. We might go to a Piffaro concert in Philadelphia. We might attend a NAVRS on-line play-in. I should probably get a haircut. I've started a batch of sourdough bread, which should be ready by tonight. We should probably get a new name-and-phone-number tag for Archie, and start the bureaucratic process of replacing his rabies and license tags, because they've all gone missing in the past week.
I want to make some progress on our latest medieval pavilion. I reported here on things that needed to be done to it after last Pennsic, but most of that hasn't happened yet, and we're now closer to next Pennsic than to last Pennsic.
I designed it to be set up either with guy-lines alone, with a spreader hoop, or with hub-and-spoke support, but when we set it up with guy-lines alone (at Pennsic, on sloped ground and with limited room for long rope throw), the shoulders sagged asymmetrically and it both looked ugly and felt claustrophobic. I think the spreader-hoop approach will be easier and quicker to implement than hub-and-spoke, and to that end I mail-ordered some flexible aluminum tent-poles a few days ago (their medieval persona is a willow withy), so all I need to do is sew a sleeve for them to run through. Problem is, there are currently wall-hanging loops where the sleeve needs to be. But the wall-hanging loops need adjusting anyway: each end of the tent has 33 of them, while the walls each have 34 corresponding toggles, so things didn't really match up well last Pennsic. So the plan is to take most of the existing loops off the roof edge, sew on a spreader-hoop sleeve (covering a currently raw-edged seam), and reattach the loops slightly closer together on the inside face of the sleeve. Then we can feed the aluminum poles through the sleeve, and theoretically between their natural desire to be straight and the tent's semicircular shape, we'll get a nice, neat, taut, semicircular shoulder.
We may also need a rope or a rod or something connecting the two ends of the semicircle to keep them the right distance apart (i.e. to keep the poles' desire to be straight from outright winning the contest and turning an oval tent into a rectangular tent). A rod would serve double duty by hanging divider curtains and stuff like that, which we would very much like, so we'll probably need some uprights to hold that up so it can hold (a little) weight. Also need to apply waterproofing to the roof (and ideally walls), and finish waterproofing the wooden floor tiles we mail-ordered after last Pennsic, and perhaps attach another row of webbing stake-loops a foot or so up the walls to accommodate setup on sloped ground, and perhaps attach some short rope stake-loops to the webbing stake-loops on the walls. And it would be nice to have center poles that (a) look more medieval, and/or (b) provide support for the middles of the curtain-rods, or even a hub-and-spoke construction. But that's a larger woodworking project.
It would also be nice to apply some painted decoration to the roof and/or walls, and that should probably be done before we waterproof it, but if we wait for the paint project to happen, the waterproofing will never happen and we'll have a lot of wet, mildewy stuff. OTOH, many of the medieval pictures of tents show elaborate decoration on the valence and/or roof cap, and much less on the walls or the main part of the roof, so it would be plausible to do a smaller decoration project on the valence and leave the walls and roof (which are more critical to waterproof) fairly plain. OTTH, other medieval pictures of tents have elaborate decorations covering the walls and roof as well as the valence and roof-cap. This will need more discussion and consideration.
shalmestere spent much of yesterday laminating dozens of paper snowflakes for easier mounting and storage until next year, and there are more of them to go. We might go to a Piffaro concert in Philadelphia. We might attend a NAVRS on-line play-in. I should probably get a haircut. I've started a batch of sourdough bread, which should be ready by tonight. We should probably get a new name-and-phone-number tag for Archie, and start the bureaucratic process of replacing his rabies and license tags, because they've all gone missing in the past week.I want to make some progress on our latest medieval pavilion. I reported here on things that needed to be done to it after last Pennsic, but most of that hasn't happened yet, and we're now closer to next Pennsic than to last Pennsic.
I designed it to be set up either with guy-lines alone, with a spreader hoop, or with hub-and-spoke support, but when we set it up with guy-lines alone (at Pennsic, on sloped ground and with limited room for long rope throw), the shoulders sagged asymmetrically and it both looked ugly and felt claustrophobic. I think the spreader-hoop approach will be easier and quicker to implement than hub-and-spoke, and to that end I mail-ordered some flexible aluminum tent-poles a few days ago (their medieval persona is a willow withy), so all I need to do is sew a sleeve for them to run through. Problem is, there are currently wall-hanging loops where the sleeve needs to be. But the wall-hanging loops need adjusting anyway: each end of the tent has 33 of them, while the walls each have 34 corresponding toggles, so things didn't really match up well last Pennsic. So the plan is to take most of the existing loops off the roof edge, sew on a spreader-hoop sleeve (covering a currently raw-edged seam), and reattach the loops slightly closer together on the inside face of the sleeve. Then we can feed the aluminum poles through the sleeve, and theoretically between their natural desire to be straight and the tent's semicircular shape, we'll get a nice, neat, taut, semicircular shoulder.
We may also need a rope or a rod or something connecting the two ends of the semicircle to keep them the right distance apart (i.e. to keep the poles' desire to be straight from outright winning the contest and turning an oval tent into a rectangular tent). A rod would serve double duty by hanging divider curtains and stuff like that, which we would very much like, so we'll probably need some uprights to hold that up so it can hold (a little) weight. Also need to apply waterproofing to the roof (and ideally walls), and finish waterproofing the wooden floor tiles we mail-ordered after last Pennsic, and perhaps attach another row of webbing stake-loops a foot or so up the walls to accommodate setup on sloped ground, and perhaps attach some short rope stake-loops to the webbing stake-loops on the walls. And it would be nice to have center poles that (a) look more medieval, and/or (b) provide support for the middles of the curtain-rods, or even a hub-and-spoke construction. But that's a larger woodworking project.
It would also be nice to apply some painted decoration to the roof and/or walls, and that should probably be done before we waterproof it, but if we wait for the paint project to happen, the waterproofing will never happen and we'll have a lot of wet, mildewy stuff. OTOH, many of the medieval pictures of tents show elaborate decoration on the valence and/or roof cap, and much less on the walls or the main part of the roof, so it would be plausible to do a smaller decoration project on the valence and leave the walls and roof (which are more critical to waterproof) fairly plain. OTTH, other medieval pictures of tents have elaborate decorations covering the walls and roof as well as the valence and roof-cap. This will need more discussion and consideration.
