Connecting 10 inch steel sleeves are necessary when a person does not have a vehicle that can transport long wall tent frame rafters. A normal size pick up has an 8 foot bed and can accommodate 14 x 16 and smaller tent rafters.
Sleeves are used to connect tent frame poles after rafters are cut in half. There will be a quarter inch nipple halfway in the sleeve to stop the rafters sliding all the way through.
Example, 8 ' rafter can be cut in half and the sleeve connects the two 4' poles.
You can permanently affix a rafter sleeve to one end of a split rafter with gorilla glue or similar high quality glue. Attaching sleeve to one of a rafter makes it easier to keep required frame parts together. This will also make setup easier and faster.
A tent frame utilizing rafter sleeves requires 1 sleeve per rafter. For example, a 4 rafter tent frame would require 8 tent sleeves, 4 rafters on each side.
Designed to accept 1" electrical metal tubing, EMT, conduit. The 1 " refers to the inside conduit measurement.
The tent rafters should be fully seated against the 10 inch sleeve nipple. If not fully seated, the frame will not connect together properly at the frame eaves.
Sleeve ten inch length is necessary to spread the tent load farther away from the actual location where the 2 rafter parts meet.
Hardware store conduit sleeves are not strong enough or designed to connect rafters or carry any heavy type of load. Conduit sleeves available at hardware stores are lightweight and approximately 3" long. The hardware store EMT conduit sleeves connect fully supported conduit along building walls.
The raptor sleeve is effective however it's a very loose fit If it's intended to work with standard 1" EMT conduit.
On one end I centered the tubing by wrapping 3/4-in black electrical tape tape to make a tight fit At the leading edge and another wrap of The same tape at about a 8-in shy of flush with the sleeve. I drilled 3/16" holes At 1/3 points in between the two tape bands through the sleeve
I injected with the tip on a tube of urethane glue/calking into these three holes and an additional round of caulking to fill the 1/8 gap at the flush point. This process securely fastened the sleeve to one half of the rafter pair
The other piece of EMT conduit is loose and I'm still trying to figure a permanent solution to take up the slopp. I've placed less than perfect wraps of the 3/4 electrical tape at the leading edge and near the flush point but it's still leaves a lot of play. I suppose you're well aware that a tighter fit could be achieved with a tubing closer to the OD of the 1" EMT conduit. I'm also aware that this more perfect fit would cost significantly more money and there'd be a lot of pushback on a raise of price I'm sure. So I understand and for the money and little ingenuity on the end users part I think it's a great option and thank you very much.
Hi Blain, thanks for sharing your experience and the solution you used, we appreciate the feedback.
Great sleeve I used them on my longer rafters and Made packing my rafts away a lot easier / shorter.
Good to hear, Craig. Glad the sleeves worked out for your setup.
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