How to attach a shade tarp to a vehicle?

HughMungus · Post by **HughMungus** » Fri Jul 15, 2005 11:44 am

Let's say I wanted to use the long sides of two vehicles as two of the bases/sides for my shade structure. What are some ways i could do that? I'm thinking of two categories of attachment here. One way would be permanently adding brackets or something to a travel trailer for one side of the structure and the other way would be temporarily attaching brackets or something to an SUV. What would be good permanent attachment hardware? What would be good temporary attachment hardware?

Also, given this configuration, what would you estimate my maximum span between the vehicles should be (assuming about a 20' depth). Could I get away with a 20'x20' shade area this way? Is this even a good idea?

robotland · Post by **robotland** » Fri Jul 15, 2005 12:10 pm

You can park the vehicles on top of ropes (knot the ends) that go out, up and over to meet in the center of your space....Make sure to put some old t-shirts or foam blocks under all points where the rope touches your car if you care for your paintjob.
You can also crack windows on both sides, and run the rope through and up over the roof....same caution applies.
Or anchor underneath to towpoints or frame, and come up and out to poles.
I wouldn't think you could get 20'x20' without two 20' vehicles, unless you supplemented with tentpoles.

phil · Post by **phil** » Fri Jul 15, 2005 12:20 pm

I'm against surrounding your shade by vehicles as it obstructs your view of the wonderful goings on and goings and comings which are the life of Burning Man and it obstructs others' view of _you_ and your wonderful goings on, which are an integral part of the life of BM.

However, it's your choice. I slammed the door on the top of my fabric my first year at BM. That worked, although there was some slight rippage, and it meant I couldn't use that particular door to get into the van.

The bigger the area of the fabric you use, the bigger the sail area when the wind catches it. How sturdy is the fabric? If you can't make the fabric taut, it will flap and tear.

The bigger the area of the fabric, the more water it will hold when it rains. How much water will it hold till it breaks and drenches whatever is underneath it? On the other hand, if it doesnt' break, how are you going to get the water off? The rain water will form a puddle which will droop the fabric in the middle, probably stretching it permanently and creating a permanent droop in your shade. (I speak from experience.)

If you have seen those guys with suction cups and handles that they use to move plate glass, see if you can locate those. See
http://www.anver.com/document/company/v ... ndcups.htm
for an assortment. They work on clean metal as well as glass (they use suction cups and glue for pulling dents out of cars). Suction the cup to your roof or side, and tie the fabric to the handles.

Use the magnet mounts amateur radio operators use to put antennas on the roofs of their cars. See
http://www.mfjenterprises.com/products. ... d=MFJ-336T
for one example. Some of them are quite powerful; again, though, you need to keep in mind that wind gusts can get close to a hundred MPH. Put the fabric between the magnet and the car or trailer, but be wary of having the wind pull the fabric and magnet along to where the magnet falls off.

HughMungus · Post by **HughMungus** » Fri Jul 15, 2005 1:02 pm

robotland wrote:You can park the vehicles on top of ropes (knot the ends) that go out, up and over to meet in the center of your space....Make sure to put some old t-shirts or foam blocks under all points where the rope touches your car if you care for your paintjob.

You can also crack windows on both sides, and run the rope through and up over the roof....same caution applies.
Or anchor underneath to towpoints or frame, and come up and out to poles.[/quote]

So simple yet so brilliant. I'll try that when I test.

I wouldn't think you could get 20'x20' without two 20' vehicles, unless you supplemented with tentpoles.

I meant, could I get that kind of span WITH the vehicles. I'm concerned about the 20' span being too far.

Yeah...I have an old blue tarp that's shorter that I can test with. Wanted to get an idea before buying anything (probably silver UV-resistant tarpage).

unjonharley · Post by **unjonharley** » Fri Jul 15, 2005 4:06 pm

Last year I struck camp Sat. and stayed over to Sun. eve. i diapered the van with a huge tarp. *Covered it with blankets and brought the tarp over the van. Left the reflective stuff on he windows. **Then planted to uprights and hooked the tarp. A little work on this base plan and it could be made larger. With the tarp under and up over the SUV. The tarp,s not going anywhere and makes a great wind break around you feet.
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*Found dog blankets a ST. Vinnies. There good cept they may have a hole or soiled. Have 6 of them.
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**The uprights are conduit. Put a rebar in the ground, put the conduit over it and tie three ways. You will be able to hold a lot of weight. Four way if you are continuing on.

the_iconoclast · Post by **the_iconoclast** » Fri Jul 15, 2005 4:40 pm

Since April I have been futsing around with different shade concepts. I'll be staying in my VW Bus because I have a full sized bed and chill space inside. What I have found that works amazingly well is to get either rebar or concrete stakes and pouind them into the ground. I place them on the opposite side of the vehicle from where I want shade. Instead of mounting anything directly to the vehicle, the tarp is actually draped over it. The set-up I tried over 4th of Juplaya included a white Swiss camo tarp and a couple of tent poles. Last weekend I used a 15x18 camo tarp and a surplus camo net spreader. There is a pic of the rudimentary set-up here: and this is a little closer
The bulge on top of the tarp is the camo spreader - I had 2 poles that made it 8' tall. Beauty is - I set it up on Friday in wind and it lasted with no issues through Sunday night. Yeah, only 2 days on the Playa, but it was uber functional. The final result is going to get tried out in August at the Fence Weekend. That will consist of two of the Swiss camo tarps, two or three spreaders, about 10 pieces of the concrete bars, and a load of rope/550 cord.

As goofy as it might seems - it all works. Big secret I found with tarps without grommets is to use golf balls in the fabric and then tie off to the resulting bulge.

HughMungus · Post by **HughMungus** » Fri Jul 15, 2005 5:21 pm

Hm. So now I'm wondering if it's a good idea to get a really big tarp and tie it to the frame with rope BUT have it overlap one side of each vehicle. I like the idea of this as a sunblocker for the vehicles but I wonder if there would be too much flapping. Also, would this increase the sail effect?

unjonharley · Post by **unjonharley** » Fri Jul 15, 2005 5:26 pm

DallasPlaya wrote:Hm. So now I'm wondering if it's a good idea to get a really big tarp and tie it to the frame with rope BUT have it overlap one side of each vehicle. I like the idea of this as a sunblocker for the vehicles but I wonder if there would be too much flapping. Also, would this increase the sail effect?

~
For this year i'm add a top rack to keep an air space above the van. Salvaged rack above $6.

the_iconoclast · Post by **the_iconoclast** » Fri Jul 15, 2005 5:29 pm

The Swiss tarps have holes in them that help eliminate sail effect. I am going to spend a little more time prepping for the final test, but with the spreaders, I believe I can minimize the flapping. The tarps are made of Tyvek and it seems to flap less than the standard style tarps. The added advantage is indeed the fact that the arrangement provides cooling for my sleeping/chill space.

HughMungus · Post by **HughMungus** » Sat Jul 16, 2005 2:17 pm

the_iconoclast wrote:The Swiss tarps have holes in them that help eliminate sail effect. I am going to spend a little more time prepping for the final test, but with the spreaders, I believe I can minimize the flapping. The tarps are made of Tyvek and it seems to flap less than the standard style tarps. The added advantage is indeed the fact that the arrangement provides cooling for my sleeping/chill space.

Well, I know from repeatedly setting up and tearing down camo net in the Marines that if the spreaders are tight against the netting, neither the netting nor the spreaders are going anywhere...

Tiahaar · Post by **Tiahaar** » Sat Jul 16, 2005 9:29 pm

Greetings DP (and all you other converters of perfectly normal real world RV's to Playa Palaces):

I too like to anchor one side of a shade tarp to my rig. The setup I did was screw on a stainless pad-eye (from a marine store) every two feet down the top on one side of the bus (I've got steel sidewalls & frame members, the same could be done where you have a good wood member along the top edge behind the aluminum/fiberglass siding). Then glued lengths of heavy-wall outdoor grey 3/4" pvc conduit together to get the needed length and cable-tied that to the eyes. So now I have conduit running along the top edge that I attach a tarp to wherever its grommets are (using Ball-Bungees this year wahoo!). Has been a great permanent installation so far.

diane o'thirst · Post by **diane o'thirst** » Sun Jul 17, 2005 9:35 pm

My neighbour and I did it by stretching the fabric between our vehicles. We both had roofracks. Basically what I did was sew a pocket in my side and ran a pole that was slightly longer than the width and bungee corded it to my roofrack, he attached the other end with clamps to his roofrack. We kept the middle from sagging by pitching a market umbrella in the middle of our shade.

They're right, you do miss out on what's going on around you, but by the same token it serves as a nice hidey-hole if you want privacy. The way we got around that was we opened the drapes in the vehicles (an SUV and a VW van) so it was like looking through a window. I'd say a circle of shaded-over vehicles needn't be anymore isolating than a dome of the same size.

We used olefin (the same material in market umbrellas) for our shade. Dense enough for deep shade, light enough to breathe. Didn't do a whole lot of moving in the wind even though our structure was pretty well jury-rigged.

AbsolutJeenyus · Post by **AbsolutJeenyus** » Tue Jul 19, 2005 1:50 pm

A good thing to do that will eliminate both rain collection and the shade being used as a sail and taking off in the wind or ripping... Is use a fabric you can cut, and make small 4 or 5 inch half oval shaped slits in the fabric/tarp. This way rain can drain through and wind will go right through it, yet still providing you with excellent shade...

How to attach a shade tarp to a vehicle?

How to attach a shade tarp to a vehicle?

Results of testing