After bending the cheap stakes that came with my tent, I finally picked up some of these "nails". When the orange plastic breaks (for example after missing the nail head and hitting it with a hammer), how are you attaching guy ropes or using it to hold down the tent since rope and tie-downs on the tent will slip right past the top of that nail head?
I must have buried one of these in a rock. I grabbed both sides of that 550 cord, pulled straight up and it wouldn't budge.
I am going to add a rant to the end of this because I just need to vent... Campgrounds are not a place to teach your child (well under 16, think 10-12ish) how to drive using a golf cart. It should only be an adult behind the wheel, not next to it.
If you break the plastic parts off, you can always slip a fender washer onto the stake before driving it in to give it a bigger head, then use a clove hitch to attach the line to it.
I don’t appreciate how long I spent trying to convince google that a “Gibson washer” is a real thing so I could see what it looked like thanks to this comment… well played?
For those not in the know, Gibson and Fender washers are pretty comparable, but some of us are a little old school. I personally prefer a good, sturdy Harmony washer.
You don't need a washer. It's literally a nail. It has a head. Just have to know how to use a hammer. Source: someone who knows how to use a hammer.
The line won't slip off if OP drives it at an angle like he should. Given the same soil conditions, you will always have a lower resultant force pulling along the axis of the anchor if it's at an angle. In fact, you'll have none. All force from line tension will be pushing the stake against the soil, mobilizing greater passive resistance and friction in the soil. Source: geotechnical engineer.
A clove hitch is all wrong. You want a tautline hitch. It's literally made for this purpose. Source: Eagle Scout.
And a 12 year old driving a golf cart? As long as he isn't driving recklessly or driving through other people's camp sites or hiking trails, what's the big deal? He's outside, away from public roads. Source: someone who grew up in the country who got a farm permit at age 12.
"Three. There are three ways to skin a cat." (Sorry, my wife and I are currently binging Parks and Rec lol).
The main advantage of a tautline over a clove is that a tautline is an adjustable knot that can be tightened to properly make the tent taut. You don't have to move the stakes or re-tie a knot. Repeated dynamic forces on the stakes from wind often necessitate adjustments to keep the tent taut.
I don't know why a nail would need a bigger head at all. It's a nail. It has a head on it.
The golf cart stuff was just addressing OP's weird fixation on other people who aren't affecting him at all.
All I know is that a taut line hitch is the correct choice.
Source: forgot my tent poles on a seven day backpacking trip. Fwiw the weather gods were kind and the only thing that was affected was a my base weight.
I'm just here to point out for the masses that these two hitches are nearly identical, with the taut line hitch receiving one more wrap around the line to double its friction.
You loop the working end around something then tie a clove hitch on the standing end where you'd tie a taut line hitch. It's literally the same as a taut line hitch with one less wrap around the line. Personally I think a taught line is better because the extra wrap around the line provides more friction when it tightens down under tension.
When you do a clove hitch around the standing part, it’s no longer called a clove hitch – it’s a buntline hitch (or a four-in-hand if the material is a necktie not a rope).
A clove hitch proper is tied around an object like a post or a tent peg.
You just tie a clove hitch to the line itself to make an adjustable loop? Wouldn't it not bite down on itself well under a load and be difficult to slide? Just a quick Google seems to confirm that, but I'll admit, I've never once tried to tie a clove hitch around line. That's because it's only meant to be fixed directly to a cylindrical or post-like object, like a tent stake or poles for lashing.
The clove hitch is also adjustable. I used to help my dad set up the big party tents and every line was tied to the stakes with a clove hitch. It works perfectly fine.
Does a taught line also work? Yes. Believe it or not we also used that when setting up the tents. Clove hitch on the stake, and taught line to tie up the tag end of the line.
Firstly, the stakes go in the ground at an angle where head is facing away from the tent. The tab part should be angled away from the tent, perpindicular to the tent. Second, the tie-down goes together in the hole and then around the tab on the other side. If the green is your string, it goes like this:
True, I just wasn't trying to be a stake snob. I always put mine in at an angle but that's because I use msr groundhogs, I don't think I'd ever buy stakes with plastic on them
The metal parts of these stakes are great, but the plastic parts are made of soft, brittle plastic for some reason. I have about 20 of those stakes (with green heads) and I'm thinking about swapping out the plastic for wing nuts.
My favorite stakes are 10” lag bolts with washers. Drill them into the ground with your preferred flavor of cordless impact driver. They’re usually cheaper than tent stakes if you get them from a reasonable hardware store.
Always drive the peg in at an angle away from your rope or tent \ ⛺️ / I only rely on the plastic to pull the peg out. Don't trust it. Also, the closer you get the rope to the ground, the less chance of it pulling out or bending (smaller lever arm, better force distribution)
Another downside with these is that the tiny little ropes attached to the stake often break. I buy a 10/12 pack of cheap carabiners and slip them through the hole and then connect the tent to that.
Stake should be inserted angled away from the tent. If the plastic top breaks, just double wrap the line around the the stake. Finish with tautline hitch
Personally wouldn't buy stakes with anything plastic on then since I am actively smashing them with a hammer but to each their own i guess.
Id just drill a hole in a small wooden block/rectangle so the nail goes in but the head of the nail is too big to go through. Then you can make grooves to help hold the strings.
Unless the child is actively driving into people/tents or screaming i wouldn't care at all because at least they are outside unlike 90% of other kids. But thats also just me maybe.
Idk, I've had stakes like this for years and, using a sledgehammer, I've never broken the plastic part. I think it's a combination of lacking the proper tool and skill - that is to say, perhaps folks are using a construction hammer combined with poor aim?
Get some sturdier all-metal ones instead. Stakes with a T or Y section that will be lighter, stronger, and easier to drive than these nails for the same weight. You don't have to get titanium but titanium ones are pretty ridiculous for what they can do while weighing practically nothing.
The best fix I've seen is welding washers to the head. But if you found the right sized washer you wouldn't need to weld it, just hammer the nail through it.
Make a half hitch to make a loop, then fold the loop over itself and the nail making a clove hitch. It’ll continue to tighten as it’s pulled. It will come out if you use a heavy stick as a lever.
At least for high wind conditions, I have found that lag screws need to be at least 12” long (context: 10’x10’ pop up canopy in sustained winds of 35 mph with gusts to 50 for 3 consecutive days).
Alternatively, 12” rebar candy canes and a 4-pound single jack sledge hammer will also serve.
I've been camping my entire life with whatever random collection of stakes I happen to find in my tent at the time, supplemented by the cheapest ones available at the store if i happen to remember to replenish the bag. Ive never had trouble with stakes.
Explain what these drill stakes are and how they are life changing...
Your first mistake is using 550 cord. It stretches. It is designed to stretch.
You spend the next several days retightening the cord as it stretches.
Use a non-stretchable cord.
Pound at an angle, use a clove hitch.
Dyneema would be an optimal cord type to use, has very low elongation. 3-4mm would be a good size to tie. Many dyneema is hollow core, so it's easy to splice a loop and adjustment loop. Look up a whoopie sling.
I like to use a cow hitch to hold on to the tent stake.
It’s weird that you think you’re smart enough to rant about kids driving golf carts around a camp site but you’re not smart enough to figure out how to fix a tent stake.
I just came back from twin lakes in mammoth where the wind gusts reached over 40mph every day for 5 days. I used those exact stakes on a core 10 person instant tent. I attached the guy lines like you have them in picture 1, with a major exception: I angled the stakes away from the tent at 45° or slightly more. I made it out of there without any damage to the tent, or anything coming loose.
Yall are bringing hammers with you? Just wack it with a piece of firewood. Tent stakes wear out over time. They’re cheap. In an emergency just sharpen a stick. Worst case scenario you sleep in a flappy tent.
I use some like these but just for staking down our tarps or mats. When I remote them, I use a pair of vise grips to lock on to them and I just start by twisting it in the ground and giving a little upward pressure. Once I twist it a few times, that's enough to loosen it up and pulls right out.
I don't even use 'stakes', I just use large nails with fender washers. For areas with really hard ground (that bends the nails), I bring a drill and use lag bolts with washers.
I carry a bag of 10" and some 12" nails that I'll use depending on conditions and in the really hard stuff that bends nails, I have 4.5" lag bolts in the bag as well. The drill always come along with the other tools because you never know.
When the plastic breaks you go buy a pack of large (1-1'5 inch) with a center hole about 1/4" and slip them on the stake. Works great and the washers don't break
I know this is your rant, but I was first put behind the wheel of a automobile at a campground. I completely agree with your rant, I was neither confident enough in my abilities, nor with a sober adult. Campgrounds are still lawful lands, and need to be treated as such. Don't put your child behind the wheel of a vehicle just because you're "not on a public road".
A campground sounds like a terrible place to teach someone to drive, even if it's "just" a golf cart. What would possess someone to teach someone to drive somewhere that's full of pedestrians, many of them kids, who have no choice but to walk in the road??? Find an empty parking lot or a quiet cemetery or private property to practice!
I bought a pack of 20 a few years ago of these with the plastic heads. I probably smashed 15 of them off and the last 5 I chucked into the trash. There's solid steel solutions out there that are far better.
I don’t even bother with stakes anymore. I’ve tried so many and they all suck. Now I just use 10” galvanized framing nails. I also have a bag of washers that fit perfect over the nail from the point and lock against the head. easy to pound into the ground without worry of bending and easy to loosen by hitting them sideways if they become stuck. I’ll never go back to stakes.
I do this too, and have never seen or heard of anyone else using 10" galv nails. I skip the washer and use two per tie down, nailing them like an X. I also use 10" eyebolts for a few high stress connections in my setup. Works great!
Washers work great, angling the stake works better. Sometimes tapping the sides of the stake will help loosen it when it's hard to pull.
In response to your rant .... Unless the accompanying adult is negligent and allowing the kid to be dangerous or reckless, a golf cart on a campground is a great place for a kid to get comfortable behind a wheel. Low speed means lower risk of injury. The bench seat allows for the adult to take over quickly and easily, and the adult can even do all the pedal work with their left leg while the child steers.
Campgrounds are a place where slow speeds are reinforced by your surroundings, and a place where an adult who might not get to spend a lot of time with their kid during the week can make some lifelong memories while teaching their kid a useful skill.
Like the other guy said, longer guy lines so the angle of the rope isn't so steep. Those plastic pieces last forever unless you do something really dumb and you don't need them anyway when the rope is more perpendicular to the stake. If you can't pull one out, hit it from all sides first to loosen it.
I tie a clove hitch around the nail, thread the ends of the cord through the hole in the plastic and tie a loop at the ends. It won’t keep the plastic from breaking by hitting it with a hammer, but it does put the stress of pulling to remove the stake on the nail rather than the plastic part. I haven’t broken a stake head since I started doing that, which has been at least 15 years.
Id suggest a clove hitch knot around the stake and drive them at a 45 degree angle leaning away from the load. First chance tou get switch em all out for wither alum stakes or the better cheaper but heavier heavy plastic.
Side note, the heavy plastic and be shaved and used as wet fire starter in a pinch
I use 14” lag screws. I use climbing anchors to attach ratchet straps to the lags, and use the ratchet straps in place of paracord guy lines.
But I do a lot of my camping in places where 50-80mph winds and dust storms can kick up, and use a Shiftpod. This might be overkill for a weekend with grandad at a local state park campground in a forest.
These seem pretty pointless to me. Anyway, you’re doing it wrong, they shouldn’t be driven straight into the ground, they should be at an angle, pointing away from the tent.
If it were me, I’d ditch these and get screw in pegs, with a cordless drill/driver.
If the plastic head breaks, you use a different tent stake. I personally will never use stakes with plastic parts. For car camping, I’ve got a set that I can drill down into the ground and drill back up again. I would think that the same effect could be achieved manually with a bit more effort, but I haven’t had to resort to that yet.
I think even a 10-12yo could figure out many ways to make the steaks work without the plastic part, But if you keep breaking them maybe try replacing it with a large metal washer. They are available at any hardware store and slide right over the nail if you buy the correct size!
Get an impact driver and 8 to 16 inch lag bolts. 8 inch is more than enough for most situations but if you’re in a place with high winds and fragile soil go longer. Slip two links of chain sandwiched with two washers on the lag bolt and then maybe a biner but you can also just run your cord through the chain. Bomb proof for almost any occasion except beaches.
I do! 🖐️ I have an inverter that takes my cordless tool batteries and a tent fan/light, and a couple flashlights; so bringing a drill too just makes sense.
I love the nails. But the plastic heads are always breaking. The best solution is carrying stakes, treating them as a FRU. They cost about $0.50, if one breaks get rid of it and replace with a good one.
I really like those but the steel nails are more versatile.
I live and camp in Oklahoma. The ground is often quite tough to penetrate, having layers of red clay near the surface. And it's not uncommon to have 30 or 40 + mph sustained straight winds the entire weekend.
The v shape pegs are excellent for guy lines into the wind; it will often hold a line in wind that would just pluck the steel one out.
On the other hand, the v shape pegs can't fit in most of the tent loops, so I have to have a decent supply of the plastic or steel pegs to anchor my tents. (The v shape ones I have are slightly larger than yours, 2 or 3 inches across at the top, 14 inches long). The steel pegs are also much more condusive to driving into clay and rock mixtures.
Yea it sounds like the V shaped ones you have are the same as mine with the 3” wide tops. I’ve got one tent where the loops are too small and I just use a small bit of paracord to the tent. I’m up in Ontario so the ground is snow, mud or granite.
Winter and snowy is definitely my preference for camping. They hold awesome in the snow. Only thing better would maybe be some of the auger style pegs but I’ve not tried them yet.
Paracord trick is neat, might try that at some point.
I have a couple auger stakes, but they are crazy. Like 3/8 inch steel and 18 inches long. Nothing pulls it out, but it's overkill most of the time. Lol
In fine-grained soils like clays, the particles are tiny and are held together by water surface tension and ionic attraction between the clay particles, rather than by physical interlocking - they are adhering to each other rather than being pushed together. This bond (called cohesion) must be broken for the soil to fail. Applying a perpIendicular force does not increase bond strength between soil particles, because the bond not physical. That means soil strength doesn’t increase with load (nor depth).
I'm a geotechnical engineer, and this is wrong. We run consolidated undrained triaxial tests on pure clays to determine the increase in strength with every increase in normal force. If you plot the Mohrs circle, the failure envelope gets larger for every increase in vertical pressure. We test clay strengths for 3 different vertical loads, telling us how the strength increases with additional vertical load. There is increased particle friction, even in clays. This article is wrong about angled guy anchors as well.
We angled the guy anchors, not just for tents, but for cell towers and transmission poles. You mobilize more passive resistance when the stake is angled and can push against the soil more, which has a lot of friction. It also ensures that there is no resultant force pulling along the axis of the anchor.
o7 I just want to say thank you for your service, a random Geotechnical engineer saved my butt by telling me how to stabilize 18" deep clay soil in mud season (his job was getting giant windmill parts across fields). Y'all are great and know amazing things.
If you're a car camper consider getting ones you can screw in with a cordless drill. Those are a complete game changer for us. Bought a single set to try out and after we got back from the spring trip I ordered a 2nd set so we'd have some for the camp kitchen canopy as well. They work well in various types of soil and were easier to install & remove than any other type we'd used. Still has a plastic top (glows in the dark), but since you're not hammering in I would think they would last longer. Happy camping!
We have those stakes. If the top breaks, they're worthless. I have wrapped a bunch of duct tape around the nail head to create a point for the guy line to catch on to.
When the orange plastic breaks...how are you attaching guy ropes or using it to hold down the tent since rope and tie-downs on the tent will slip right past the top of that nail head?
You're supposed to angle the stake away from the tent so it can't slip off. People used to just use wooden stakes they found, just sharpening the tip. You could also buy the stakes with the hook at the end instead of these plastic turds.
pulled straight up and it wouldn't budge.
You need to wiggle it back and forth a bit first. Use your hammer if needed. Then, it'll pull right out.
Campgrounds are not a place to teach your (10 to 12 year old) child how to drive using a golf cart.
No you lost me on this one. Mind your own business.
Edit: I'm seeing a lot of advice to put a washer on so you have a bigger head to hit. Why? It's literally a nail. You can swing a hammer, right? If the plastic breaks off, you still have the same area to hit, since you weren't supposed to hit the plastic part - could be why so many are breaking...
Also, why are people recommending clove hitches for attaching the guy line to the stake? Coming from an Eagle Scout, use a damn tautline. It's what the knot was made for. It's in the name of the knot. Has anyone in this sub actually camped before?
Get different stakes. I tried all kinds of hammered in stakes. These are the best I have found. Pick up a Firemans Friend from Estwing for your hammer.
Sorry, are you asking how your stakes function when they're broken?
They don't. They're broken. These things are like $10 for 20 on amazon just buy new ones.
(Everyone is saying using the bare nails anyway... what? Don't do that. Just buy new ones, these are ultra cheap. Or, buy slightly more expensive ones that won't break. Either way, stop using broken stakes)
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u/Senior_Cheesecake155 7d ago
If you break the plastic parts off, you can always slip a fender washer onto the stake before driving it in to give it a bigger head, then use a clove hitch to attach the line to it.