A tent peg (or tent stake) is a spike, usually with a hook or hole on the top end, typically made from wood, metal, plastic, or composite material, pushed or driven into the ground for holding a tent to the ground, either directly by attaching to the tent's material, or by connecting to ropes attached to the tent. Traditionally, a tent peg is improvised from a section of a small tree branch, if possible with a small side branch cut off to leave a hook, driven into the ground narrower end first.
A tent will typically be pegged to the ground by a combination of both direct attachment to the tent's material and via ropes.
Tent pegs are used to help maintain the tent's shape, and to hold the tent in place against wind.
Tent pegs are preferably pushed into the ground by hand. However, hard ground, or bigger tent pegs, will require a tent peg mallet to drive them into the ground.
A tent peg provides the greatest holding ability when it is inserted into the ground so that the point of attachment of the rope is at ground level. This minimises the rope's ability to apply leverage to the tent peg, which can loosen or pull the tent peg from the ground.
Above, the emphasis is on leverage and in recent years a new type of tent peg has been developed which eliminates leverage. The addition of an arm at the top of the peg enables the tension to be directed to a point beneath the ground where the soil is firm. The peg is 'balanced' with little or no leverage (moment). This new peg style presents a greater surface area to resist tension in guys.
Tent pegs come in wide variety of shapes, sizes, and materials.
The type of tent peg best suited to a tent will be determined by several factors, such as:
Better quality tent pegs will have symmetrical tips, either conical or V-shaped, to ensure that they can be driven into the ground without veering off alignment. [1] They will also typically have hook extensions to allow the end of the hook to be also driven into the ground, providing a second ground contact point, to reduce the risk that the peg may turn in the ground under tension and allow the rope it is holding to slip off the hook. [1] [2]
Other styles of tent pegs have fully formed eyes through which the rope is passed so that the rope cannot come off the peg no matter which direction the peg is oriented. The Delta (or dog-leg) shape peg always points toward the tent and can never turn. The guy is partially buried and cannot slip off the hook. [3] Delta shaped pegs lie level with the soil offering maximum safety. The rope pulls against the ground rather than levering a straight peg at one end. Metal delta pegs can be springy, absorbing wind shocks.
Some types of tent pegs are made from flat material pressed into a shallow "V" shape cross section. [4] This type of tent peg relies on the broadness of the section to not turn under tension. [5]
Tent peg types and styles may typically vary in length from 150mm to 490mm, and in thickness from 1.6 mm to 3.2 mm for flat section tent pegs and from 4 mm to 11.2 mm for wire rod [2] [6] [7] tent pegs. Smaller wire tent pegs are also available, especially where weight is critical.
Plastic tent pegs are typically very wide and longer than metal pegs, and are used for softer ground types, sand and light soils. [7] [8] [9]
Ultralight U-shaped aluminium alloy tent pegs are used in snow and sand, each peg weighing around 45 g. These pegs can be planted into sand or snow, head outward away from the tent at a 45-degree angle from the ground, with the tent or a guy line attached to the head area. The pegs can also be used by tying the guy lines to the middle hole, laying them flat at the bottom of a hole sand or snow, and then burying them.
Heavy-duty tent pegs may be made from angle iron from 2.5 mm to 5 mm thick, and have the hook welded into the open side of the angle, meaning that the open angle faces the tent, bracing the open angle of the tent peg against the tension. [10]
Tent pegs may be manufactured from steel rod or wire, pressed flat steel, aluminium section, titanium alloy, [11] angle iron, plastic, polycarbonate, [8] polypropylene, [8] polystyrene, [7] or ABS plastic. [7] Steel tent pegs are typically zinc plated or stainless steel. Untreated metal tent pegs are available. Carbon fibre [11] metal tipped tent pegs are also manufactured. Wooden tent pegs are now not common, with higher strength to weight ratio, and high durability, materials being used instead.
Armies on the move have often used tents for sleeping accommodation overnight. A tactic used by an opposing force was to initiate an attack by riding on horse back at speed through an army's tents knocking the tent pegs out of the ground thereby collapsing tents on the enemy as they slept providing a means to hinder the enemy while a more direct attack took place. This practice has now developed into a stylised equestrian sport in various forms called tent pegging.
The Book of Judges provides the story of Jael, the wife of Heber, a Kenite tentmaker in which Jael kills Sisera by driving a tent peg through his temple as he sleeps. (4:21) Tent pegs have also been used as murder weapons in recent history, for example in the murder of Billie-Jo Jenkins.
Other uses of tent pegs are as improvised climbing pitons, for example in the siege of the Sogdian Rock and Jean-Christophe Lafaille's self rescue on Annapurna.
A wire is a flexible, round, bar of metal.
A fishing line is any flexible, high-tensile cord used in angling to tether and pull in fish, in conjunction with at least one hook. Fishing lines are usually pulled by and stored in a reel, but can also be retrieved by hand, with a fixed attachment to the end of a rod, or via a motorized trolling outrigger.
A tent is a shelter consisting of sheets of fabric or other material draped over, attached to a frame of poles or a supporting rope. While smaller tents may be free-standing or attached to the ground, large tents are usually anchored using guy ropes tied to stakes or tent pegs. First used as portable homes by nomads, tents are now more often used for recreational camping and as temporary shelters.
In agriculture, fences are used to keep animals in or out of an area. They can be made from a wide variety of materials, depending on terrain, location and animals to be confined. Most agricultural fencing averages about 4 feet (1.2 m) high, and in some places, the height and construction of fences designed to hold livestock is mandated by law.
A winch is a mechanical device that is used to pull in or let out or otherwise adjust the tension of a rope or wire rope.
A coil spring is a mechanical device which is typically used to store energy and subsequently release it, to absorb shock, or to maintain a force between contacting surfaces. They are made of an elastic material formed into the shape of a helix which returns to its natural length when unloaded.
A grommet is a ring or edge strip inserted into a hole through thin material, typically a sheet of textile fabric, sheet metal or composite of carbon fiber, wood or honeycomb. Grommets are generally flared or collared on each side to keep them in place, and are often made of metal, plastic, or rubber. They may be used to prevent tearing or abrasion of the pierced material or protection from abrasion of the insulation on the wire, cable, line being routed through the penetration, and to cover sharp edges of the piercing, or all of the above.
A mallet is a tool used for imparting force on another object, often made of rubber or sometimes wood, that is smaller than a maul or beetle, and usually has a relatively large head.
A baler or hay baler is a piece of farm machinery used to compress a cut and raked crop into compact bales that are easy to handle, transport, and store. Often, bales are configured to dry and preserve some intrinsic value of the plants bundled. Different types of balers are commonly used, each producing a different type of bale – rectangular or cylindrical, of various sizes, bound with twine, strapping, netting, or wire.
A fastener or fastening is a hardware device that mechanically joins or affixes two or more objects together. In general, fasteners are used to create non-permanent joints; that is, joints that can be removed or dismantled without damaging the joining components. Steel fasteners are usually made of stainless steel, carbon steel, or alloy steel.
A guy-wire, guy-line, guy-rope, down guy, or stay, also called simply a guy, is a tensioned cable designed to add stability to a freestanding structure. They are used commonly for ship masts, radio masts, wind turbines, utility poles, and tents. A thin vertical mast supported by guy wires is called a guyed mast. Structures that support antennas are frequently of a lattice construction and are called "towers". One end of the guy is attached to the structure, and the other is anchored to the ground at some distance from the mast or tower base. The tension in the diagonal guy-wire, combined with the compression and buckling strength of the structure, allows the structure to withstand lateral loads such as wind or the weight of cantilevered structures. They are installed radially, usually at equal angles about the structure, in trios and quads. As the tower leans a bit due to the wind force, the increased guy tension is resolved into a compression force in the tower or mast and a lateral force that resists the wind load. For example, antenna masts are often held up by three guy-wires at 120° angles. Structures with predictable lateral loads, such as electrical utility poles, may require only a single guy-wire to offset the lateral pull of the electrical wires, at a spot where the wires change direction.
Military vehicles are commonly armoured to withstand the impact of shrapnel, bullets, shells, rockets, and missiles, protecting the personnel inside from enemy fire. Such vehicles include armoured fighting vehicles like tanks, aircraft, and ships.
A string is the vibrating element of chordophones such as the guitar, harp, piano, and the violin family, that produces sound. Strings are lengths of a flexible material that a musical instrument holds under tension so that they can vibrate freely, but with control. This is to make the string vibrate at the desired pitch, while maintaining a low profile and sufficient flexibility to play in action.
Metalworking hand tools are hand tools used in the metalworking field, powered entirely by the operator. There are lots of tools, fit for different actions to the material, such as shrinking or modifying its surface.
A window screen is designed to cover the opening of a window. It is usually a mesh made of metal, fibreglass, plastic wire, or other pieces of plastic and stretched in a frame of wood or metal. It serves to keep leaves, debris, bugs, birds, and other animals from entering a building or a screened structure such as a porch, without blocking fresh air-flow.
A violin consists of a body or corpus, a neck, a finger board, a bridge, a soundpost, four strings, and various fittings. The fittings are the tuning pegs, tailpiece and tailgut, endpin, possibly one or more fine tuners on the tailpiece, and in the modern style of playing, usually a chinrest, either attached with the cup directly over the tailpiece or to the left of it. There are many variations of chinrests: center-mount types such as Flesch or Guarneri, clamped to the body on both sides of the tailpiece, and side-mount types clamped to the lower bout to the left of the tailpiece.
Marston Mat, more properly called pierced (or perforated) steel planking (PSP), is standardized, perforated steel matting material developed by the United States at the Waterways Experiment Station shortly before World War II, primarily for the rapid construction of temporary runways and landing strips (also misspelled as Marsden matting). The nickname came from Marston, North Carolina, adjacent to Camp Mackall airfield where the material was first used.
Mechanical screening, often just called screening, is the practice of taking granulated or crushed ore material and separating it into multiple grades by particle size.
A threaded insert, also known as a threaded bushing, is a fastener element that is inserted into an object to add a threaded hole. They may be used to repair a stripped threaded hole, provide a durable threaded hole in a soft material, place a thread on a material too thin to accept it, mold or cast threads into a work piece thereby eliminating a machining operation, or simplify changeover from unified to metric threads or vice versa.
Tube bending is any metal forming processes used to permanently form pipes or tubing. Tube bending may be form-bound or use freeform-bending procedures, and it may use heat supported or cold forming procedures.
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