Well I finally got around to fixing our tent poles on Sunday afternoon. The weather was lovely, nice enough to camp in fact, which reminded me I needed to fix the poles before we can actually go. The pole sections themselves weren't broken it was the shock chord down the centre of them that needed fixing. I am surprised as we've only had the tent 18 months so to find it needs to be repaired is a little disappointing. I can see why the shock chords have broken, they rub on the edges of the pole sections when you fold the poles up and after a while that wears away the other protective covering and exposes the elastic strands within, which then snap one by one.

You can see the exposed strands in the photo on the right. Where the chord goes down the pole section on the left it's covering intact but where it goes down the one on right the covering has gone, exposing the elastic strands.

We have six long poles that form the arches of our tunnel tent, each one is over six and a half metres long and made up of 12 sections. Of the six poles, one had a shock chord that had snapped, and three others had shock chords that were on their way out.

The instructions on the replacement chord said cut and remove the old chord first, but that seemed a bit odd to me so I've left the old chord in place in the three that still had it. It made knotting the ends slightly more complicated but apart from that it wasn't any harder.

I used a trick with a fork to hold the old shock chord out of the end of the pole so I could thread the new chord past the washer and knot at the end of the old chord that was blocking the end of the first section. I also threaded the new chord through the same washer and knotted it around the old one.

Anyway threading the chord was very easy, the kit contains a thick flexible wire which when straightened out is longer than a single pole section. Having straightened it out you attach the chord to one end with tape.

NOTE: the tape is NOT included and so if you take a kit for emergency repairs when 'in the field' make sure you have some tape too. I used insulating tape and it worked fine.

Once you have the chord attached you thread the wire down each pole section in turn and pull the chord through with it. That's it really. Knotting the ends is quite straightforward too. In the poles where I had left the old chord in I threaded the new chord through the same washer as the old.

If you are threading a pole where the old chord has snapped make sure you get the sections in the right order and that they fit together. I didn't and had to un-thread the sections and re-arrange the order.

To knot the ends you have to slot the pole together and then pull the chord taught before knotting it. Remember the washer that helps prevent the knot disappearing down the pole section. I found it useful having the old chord in place at this point to judge the  tension for the new one, however I think I did the last one a bit too tight even with the old one there to judge against.

One thing I did differently from the manufacturer was I left a tail of chord sticking out of the end of the pole so it's possible to grab it and pull it out. The old chords were cut short and getting at them was tricky, I had to use long nosed pliers. Having got them I used the fork trick to keep them where I could get at them.

Lastly I used the bits of old chord from the pole where it had snapped to make some elastics to hold the poles together in the bag. They tend to all get knotted up if they're not bound somehow, I seem to recall they originally had lots of rubber bands holding them together but they have been lost in the mists of time.