Otter
About 25-30 pounds according to what weight canvas you buy. I just bought a Queen Anns
Bluff tent from Red Hawk Trading. It is an
enclosed diamond. 16 X 16. Half floor in back,
weather strip on door, mud flaps on door for
more weather protection. Their introductory price is just too good to pass on, about $200.
Tellum Oracle sent you.
www.redhawtkrading.com
The front opens to look like a diamond and encloses for privacy (nite reflections) and
50% more weather protection. quick setup, big
and rendevous accepted.

PS: www.redhawktrading.com

Medicineman was the only person to mention Panther Primitives tents--so I'll second them. My own tent is their 1750 Officers Wedge which is plenty roomy for one [my wife and I share it fine], but a friend has the big wedge mentioned and it is huge--roomy enough for anyone I would think. On the down side, the poles, etc take alot of room to haul. It typically takes two men to put it up as well. I have never seen a diamond fly that would provide true protection from the elements [and no privacy]. My own feeling is that if the weather is nice enough to use a diamond fly, it is nice enough to sleep under the stars with no covering! [which I have done often]. They do protect from light rain, etc... but the wedge will hold up under storms. We have a lot of storms down here.

I have a 10x10 RK 7foot tall plenty big for one or two people. Track of the wolf handles them. 12 foot fly gives good shade also.

Just thought I would also mention www.strinztipi.com Don has been making tents and tipis for over twenty years. Makes a wide range of tents at a good price. Check him out also.
Woodman

Goin out on a limb here...

So, I read online in some website that a diamond shelter could have used a lead ball in the corner with the cloth folded over it. A small piece of rope would then tie around the canvas wraped ball. This rope would have one end come out which would act as the sewn loops do on todays repros.

Of course, I can't find the site I was on. I could have been dreaming about this for all I know. The diamond has been on my mind for quite a while. (it is 5 am here, and I can't sleep, so to the diamond talk i go...)

Thank you,

Little Otter

During the occupation of America by the British
Army, a Sgt-Major suggested a pyramid type
tent to be held up by a musket and staked with bayonets. 7'X 7'X 7'. It would sleep four. It was not adopted.

Little Otter
That's a time honored way of attaching ties to a shelter. But instead of wasting a ball go down to the creek and find some suitably sized smooth rocks out of the creek and tie them into the corner instead of a precious lead ball.
That's how I have mine rigged , and also every other peice of canvas I own.
Woodman

If its show -n-tell at public ronny-voos, then I have to say a "Panther" wall tent with stove pipe inserts in the back door is a great way to go...especially with family along...they make a great place to live for a few days, and tidied
up and primatively decorated, they really attract the publics attention....that set up served me and my family very well.

Add a plank floor and wooden half walls and you can even make a credable wolfers of buff hunters shack...I think lots of guides favor wall tents for their live in camps even to this day....so its a pretty versitile rig...
T.Albert

T. Al is right, every big game outfitter camp I have ever seen has wall tents.

What that rock or rifle ball tied to the canvas does for you is let you get by without having loops in your canvas. That way you can use the canvas for a variety of things. You make it sound complicated...but it is just a ball or rock tied in the canvas (imagine a wrapped tootsie roll pop without the stick), and the string/cord tied to a stake or other tiedown.

Sparks

Okay Period corect fully livable.
I consider these things in a tent.
First, good durable quality tight canvas.
2nd , ease in putting up.
3rd , weather tightness to include heavy winds.
4th, useful square footage.
I have owned several tipis, several of almost
everything else. I even wrote some articles
on primitive shelters. Of everything I have
camped in my first choice is: drumroll!!

THE MUSEUM WEDGE BY TENTSMITHS!!
It's 8-feet high by 10-feet wide by 11-feet deep with a 5-foot bell in back. Thats 16-feet down the center line. Has 2-foot sod cloths all around. The bell opens to let
in cool breezes in summer. Two can sleep two men very comfortably without climbing over each other.
It's relativily easy to erect if you follow
my guideance. It's very wind and weather proof.
With good staking and wind lines criss crossing
the finials it will hold up in gales.
Yes they are pricey but the quality and value
are built in making it a good buy.
for sealing the ground. If I was packing my wife and two kids as I did for 15-years I'd go
with a Tipi or large wall tent. For spike
camps I like a 10 X 10 pyramid or this new
Queens Bluff tent. Many treks I used just
a old army shelter half set like a Whelen.
Oracle
"the foul taste of poor quality lingers far longer than the sudden sweetness of cheap price"

Well, I've done it...

I went the ACE and picked myself up a 12x15 drop cloth. Washed, dried, washed, and dried twice more. You guys were right, the strands really tighten up! Next step, waterproofing. I am considering using the nikwax (sp?) stuff. I have done alot of web surfing and that stuff seems to be all over.
I am considering making the diamond 10x10 and keeping the extra left on. I figure if the extra is on both of the ground sides it will act as an underlap that a small ground cloth will overlap...

I will use the tied ball/stone way of tie downs with small river rock i picked out of my fish tank, just smaller than a golf ball.

Any thoughts?

Lil Otter, keep the size at least 12X12.
in rainny weather you will need it.

Heya Fellas!! How historically correct iare the diamond fly just wondering??

It's basically a square piece of canvas with one corner raised and the other three staked
down to make a lean-to.

They are accepted at every rendezvous I have
heard of.

I and my son put together a 12x12 for a winter snowshoe trek and it worked very well. Just a little too big. That is a lot of snow to clear for that footprint. I'm going to keep the size but maybe next time I will place my lead balls at 10 x 10 and make it a little snugger with two feet of underlap for sealing out the back of the diamond from wind iffn it not snowing. as we had a couple of feet of snow on the ground we didn't get any wind coming in from the side. We used our toboggans as storage area and had them inside the diamond with us no prob for room. I guess why I like the diamond so much is the fact that it's so very versatile. However that said I've elk hunted for two weeks in a 16' tipi me wife and 4 small children one was an infant. lots of snow lot's of wind. Nothing and I mean nothing compares with a Lodge in these conditions, also have an ozone for it (which I used for years as my one man trekking canvas). If your family becomes involved, get a tipi. They are truly wonderful devices.

Regards, stump.

What's an Ozone? I know, 'it's a gas,' but that doesn't cotton with the way you used it, Stump.
Sparks

Sparks
Imagine a quarter-sphere shelter, opening facing the fire, inside a tipi to trap heat from the fire. Ozones are just wonderful on cold rainey nights with rain drops dripping off you poles and your too lazy to go out in the malstrom to close your smoke flaps.
Like a tent within a tipi. Cozy.

Little Otter
You did good. On your 12 X 15, run the leanto
back 10 feet an fold under five feet to make a
floor and wind/snow break. Lower the front
leading edge down to 36-inches in a swirling
driving rain. That'll stop most of it.
Many a night I laid in a Whelan lean-to, cozy warm, and dry in my sleeping bedroll with rain bouncing a foot away OUTSIDE.

Sparks,
Sometimes you see it spelled "ozan", it's a quarter- or half-ceiling slung over the back part of a tipi, just overhead. It helps reflect and/or hold in heat from your fire, and probably keeps the draft out better, too.

Dick