UKC

My only 4 year old and hardly used coleman tent showed signs of the PU degrading randomly. Coleman have replaced it without question. I stripped the guy lines off the old one and the poles and pegs can be used for spares with my scout group, but any ideas for what I could do with the canvas apart from bin it. Not every panel is ruined - any ideas for repurposing some of the fabric.

Use.it as patches in the event of damage to other tents. 

Get a sewing machine.

I have made numerous hanging duckets and clothes bags for our campervan out of recycled rope bags, old rucksacks and other bits of material in the past year.

Also done repairs and mods on rucksacks, tents and clothing.

Not bought any material for years, except fleece for mattress covers and curtains, matching hats and scarves from offcuts.

Just remembered the helmet and harness repairs and mods,  they work better than the original manufacturers design for me.

Done on a separate post as I anticipate a few gasps, dire warnings and dislikes

I have a sewing machine. This was a large tent (14 kg) - not something to easily find storage for - and it's degrading - so if I'm going to scrounge fabric from it I'll probably just cut out some good panels.

I was more thinking of suggestions of what to make. I could try making some tent bags for our scout tents that never fit back in their bags. 

Why do tent manufacturers do that? An extra inch of fabric would add minimal cost/weight but make packing away so much easier, especially when it's windy or wet, so taking the extra time to get  everything folded perfectly is not your priority.

90% of my love for Alpkit is oversized stuff sacks. Everything fits: stove, air mat, sleeping bag, pillow, tent, footprint. It's universal in their gear. 

Not suggesting you do it for a huge number of reasons, but I remember as a kid the scout group had a hike tent that was only fit for the bin. They put it up on a field and squirted some gas (from a gas stove)  in it, zipped it up and thew flaring match taped to a cricket ball at it. It was obvious nobody inside could have got out of a gas leak and cooking in a zipped up tent.

Left a big impression about cooking safety to this day!

I gave mine to Dirtbags to make into stuff. 

 I could try making some tent bags for our scout tents that never fit back in their bags. <

Great idea! The zips are also useful for re-use.

I did exactly that with my tent and put along zip down the length of the bag as I was utterly fed up with trying to roll super tight and squeeze it in

That seems like an excellent idea, a simple drawstring bag is quite straightforward to make but also very useful.

I have a friend who's just acquired an ancient Macpac backpacking tent and the only thing wrong with that is that the bag has delaminated.  (Seems to be made of more or less the same stuff as the flysheet, which is absolutely fine.)

I have an old sleeping mat bag (that's outlived the mat), and I'm wondering about giving it a sort of 'corset' so that the tent will slide in easily quite loosely rolled up, but then the bag can be cinched up on the lacing to compress it if necessary to save space in the pack.

How about some tool rolls ? Or big shopping bags ? Or duffle bags; cycle panniers ?

Years ago I bin-dived a family size tent and am still using the fabric today. I've made all of the above, though my best effort was a super frame bag for my bicycle. First a prototype in cardboard, then made a pattern, then the bag.

🙂

A local climbing gear shop up‑cycles old tents into shopping bags (returnable, with a deposit). Dunno how they strip any degraded coating off them, but the bags are pretty neat.