Bent Awning Poles

Learnt the hard way today how not to put a Dandy away in a strong breeze.    The awning roof took off like a kite and some of the poles are now banana shaped. Any advice on repairing would be gratefully received.

Are these the poles fixed to the dandy (the U shaped roof bars) or loose ones like roof supports. We used to bend conduit, which was steel tube, with a hole in a thick piece of wood called a bending block. You have to be old to remember them.

If you just bend it with nothing to support the tube it will collapse.

navver wrote:Are these the poles fixed to the dandy (the U shaped roof bars) or loose ones like roof supports. We used to bend conduit, which was steel tube, with a hole in a thick piece of wood called a bending block. You have to be old to remember them.

If you just bend it with nothing to support the tube it will collapse.

Always interested novel ways to manipulate things but can't visualize this idea. Any chance of a small sketch to show roughly how it's done? I don't get why the tube doesn't just collapse as it comes out of the piece of wood? Is the ratio of the hole size and tube important?

Don't know how clever people place a sketch on a forum, probably by CAD but something on back of fag packet or beer mat (depending on your poison) and scanned would suit me.

Manipulating pipe or tube: Oh hired benders, failed desperately with springs, used sand in a tube to bend it and seen a guy take a loose coil of microbore pipe fill it with water then freeze it to allow him to bend it into a coil to heat water from a chimney pipe.

Straightening that is a different  matter. It involves the intricacies of metals that have exceeded their elastic limit and trying to get them to return to their original shape. Never tried to straighten poles myself. [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] is the perceived wisdom of attempting the straightening of tent poles or more precisely the wisdom of Googles search on that subject. Lots of the results were actually where to buy new poles which was good because the search for [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]was a bit poor.

It occurred to me while writing that I had bent an awning pole while camping. So what did I do? As I was passing [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] the following day I popped in and asked Graham (The owner) did he have any suitable pole but alas he did not have the correct diameter. So in my case it was a drive the next Saturday up the M6 for ten miles to [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] Ian Smith cut a suitable length of pole and swaged the end to the correct size within a few minutes. The poles are high strength (compare to some other tent poles) and as Ian has all the equipment that made the Dandys originally you don't need to hope what you have bought is the right size.
Why not see what fortune Ian asks for the poles before you give yourself a headache searching further. There are lots of things I would do myself and parts I would source rather than buying from Ian he is not the cheapest person in the world. Though one has to remember that we have a fantastic resource for parts and services with Ian and he does provide excellent customer services. Read the tales of woe from Pennine buyers who couldn't get bits for 5 year old campers or look at how Conway owners would be in deep do do but for Tent Valeting Services and Graham Schuck.
So there you go this is my yearly gong bang for Ian, I'm sorry I don't have a more inspired answer and should you have any problems we will try and help you look at options.

If any of your bent poles feature the [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] then it will be a case of drilling out the pop rivets and re attaching the brackets with new rivets. If you have not read the piece so far a pop riveter, pop rivets and a few roofing bolts are required items in your Dandy tool box.
Have a look through the part sales listing as things such as the joining clips for poles are available too.

If you are trying to describe to Ian what poles you need this may help.

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Except the drawing is wrong because the two middle sliding poles (Roof) have C clips not z brackets.

It might be thought that an email can explain the poles better in writing but I'd phone first. I think Ian is better with the phone than emails.

That pole picture looks right to me. All my poles have bent bracket hangar thingummyjiggumies.

Here's a pic of a bending block. Best I can find. The hole was chamfered by burning with a hot pipe or rod.

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Put the conduit in the hole and bend it a little. Keep moving it out to add to the bend. With care, you can bend any radius and most angles. Bet you put a double bend in and end up with the block in the middle.

Which pole(s) have you bent?

To be honest, professional help from Ian will probably be best if you live fairly close.

Many thanks for the advice. Phoned Riva Dandy and they can do the job for me - which is good as I am taking Doris there to be fitted with gas struts next week.  I may look at their Dimensions while I am there. It's either save my money and earn bugger all interest or spend it and have some fun! 

navver wrote:That pole picture looks right to me. All my poles have bent bracket hangar thingummyjiggumies.

Here's a pic of a bending block. Best I can find. The hole was chamfered by burning with a hot pipe or rod.

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

Put the conduit in the hole and bend it a little. Keep moving it out to add to the bend. With care, you can bend any radius and most angles. Bet you put a double bend in and end up with the block in the middle.

Which pole(s) have you bent?

To be honest, professional help from Ian will probably be best if you live fairly close.

That pole picture looks right to me. All my poles have bent bracket hangar thingummyjiggumies.

That would be because I was talking rubbish. As shown on the drawing the C clips are on the other end of the pole. God only knows what goes on upstairs at times.


The bending block.

No doubt I should have Googled it. I was expecting something quite intricate.

How wonderfully simple never seen that. No doubt a conduit off cut heated provided the burnt hole.

A world before everyone owned a power drill. Anyone else remember burning a hole with a poker through two planks to make the front axle for a bogie as a child?



Must confess the gas struts I'd see as a owner job as significant savings can be made. All in all quite a trip and transport expenses too are you offsetting the cost by enjoying a bit of camping round these parts?

Camping in Bosnia? Was that recreational or was it a few years back in a big green tent? I had in the past camped and Youth Hostelled in large parts of former Yugoslavia. Didn't realise Bosnia and Herzegovina's tourism had re started. Just looked at B&H on Wikipedia and it appears Sarajevo is more widely travelled to than Ljubljana, Bled and most surprisingly Dubrovnik. Times and places change but I know where I would rather have been 25 years ago.
I'm intrigued about travel to any FYR any mutterings most gratefully received.

Did Bosnia about 6 years ago. Have to be careful not to camp in a minefield but otherwise, stunningly beautiful but very poignant with empty villages and war damage everywhere. Seemingly the mosques and churches were being rebuilt before the banks which is a good sign I think. Sarajevo is gorgeous with lovely food and a good municipal campsite. Mostar was stunning too but overall I just loved the place - and their coffee! Would revive a corpse.

Riva is just down the road from my brother so I am combining both. As for home fitting gas struts. No chance! My wife would laugh at you if you suggested it. I'm okay with motorbikes........

Just for the record and to help other souls not make the same mistake. What could you have done differently so as not to do damage.

Was the fixed bed head to wind

Was it so windy that nothing would have helped.

We were parked facing the wind. Our mistake was not to guy the roof down at the front and sides while we removed the side walls (ours are zip out). The wind got in under the front and flipped the whole thing upwards. We caught hold but it was too late and seven poles were bent to varying degrees.  Some folk say you should rotate the camper side on to the wind but you cannot do that with an awning attached and I'm not sure you could do it anyway - if the bed struts are removed what is holding the whole shebang together?
Lesson learned - park in a sheltered area and facing side on to the prevailing wind. 

Ahh, I thought you meant the dandy poles not the awning. Yes guying the roof would have helped. Helen suggested a while back that she guys the roof and starting at the dandy end then rolls the roof to the 1st guy, removers that and rolls to the 2nd etc. This keeps everything under control.

You can raise the drop down legs and wheel the assembled dandy around. The legs are only corner steadies and don't actually take the weight of the beds. They are supported by the pull out legs only which believe it or not are supported direct from the chassis. I'm talking about a rear entry such as a designer, not destiny.

Yes we've had the same thing happen and since then we never remove the guy's until the last thing and then only one either side (at the same time as we stand either side closest to the Dandy ) we then fold forward to the next guy and remove that and so on until the roof is all at the front and we can lift it off. The roof is already partially folded when we take it off so it makes life easier all ways and stops having flying poles which not only get bent but can also end up causing damage to the pvc     

Back from Lancashire. Put on 2 pounds weight thanks to Northern hospitality but Doris now has nice new gas struts and straight awning poles. What a nice chap is Ian and his lady assistant! Looking forward to trying the new setup out soon.
Looked at the Dimension and thought "Omg, I'd need a 4 X 4 to tow that"!  

It's just so tempting though