Repairing A Damaged Tatonka 2TC Tarp With Tear-Aid Type A Fabric Repair
Written by Phil Brown, Badger Bushcraft Blog Saturday, 14 July 2012 08:00
I was a little dismayed and to be totally honest upset to discover that my well used favourite tarp had several small holes in it, my Tatonka 2TC has certainly served me well and I estimate that I have slept under this particular tarp some 5-600 times over the last five years or so. Fortunately, or more likely due to thorough planning for such occurrences, I was able to break out the Tear-Aid Type A Fabric Repair that we keep in store.
Regular readers will recall that back in February we wrote an article on the Badger Bushcraft Blog titled “Tear-Aid - A Packet Full Of Solutions” where we acquired three products from their range:-
- Tear-Aid Fabric Repair
- Tear-Aid Vinyl Repair
- Tear-AidUnderwater Repair
Which enables us to repair the following should the need arise:-
- Canvas
- Rubber
- Sunbrella®
- Plastic
- Nylon
- Fiberglass
- Aluminum/Aluminium
- Stainless
- Steel
- Polyethylene
- Polypropylene
- Polyurethane
- Gor-Tex®
- Dacron
- Polyester
- Hypalon
- Vinyl and vinyl coated products
So armed with Tear-Aid Fabric Repair I set to work on the Tatonka TC2 holes, which numbered four on closer inspection. I’d like to say that the holes were caused by errant sparks from the fire but this is sadly not the case, this is human error and I must fully take the blame. I had packed the tarp in a hurry from a recent weekend camp over at our 100 acre woodland site near the town on Tenterden in the heart of Kent. The day ended late and I packed the tarp and put it in the rear foot well of our Land Rover Defender and then I must have put some more kit on top of it – the holes were caused by abrasion. I am normally so careful with kit but there is a lesson to be learnt from this school boy error!
The Tear-Aid Fabric Repair is a doddle to use, I cut small sections out of the the main strip and patched the holes on both the outside and inside of the material, this is not because I am unconfident that the Tear-Aid wont adhere it is just that I don’t want to take any chances that the holes wont further develop and get bigger.
Whilst having the tarp on the workbench I was able to inspect all the ridge line, guy lines and Prusiks that fix the ridge of the tarp to the ridge line. All were in good condition and I recalled that I had a spare Nite GlowRing, again featured on the Blog earlier this year in an article called Nite GlowRings - "A Handy Piece Of Bushcraft and Survival Kit", that I fixed to the head end of the tarp to act as a marker.
I am confident that the Tear-Aid will perform a sterling job on patching my damaged tarp and will be putting it to the test this weekend during a weekend camp over with eighteen school leavers and four parent helpers from Pluckley and the surrounding area. As the weather is set to be somewhat inclement I know my tarp and the repairs will get a good test!
Enjoy your weekend and look after your tarps!
