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Part 1: Fitting a Wood Burning Stove to a Canvas Bell Tent

Description

I filmed this video in between Christmas and New year. A good friend of mine bought himself a Bell Tent and Wood Burning Stove and asked me if I could cut and stitch a Flange fitting point to it. It was a fairly simple task but one that required a bit of care as these tents are not cheap. This is Part 1, thanks for watching.

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Video Transcription

hi there guys is Mike from MC he brush crafted and welcome to another video on the channel I'm or property today where I do a little bit of shooting and a friend of mine works here is the groundsmen looking over to the place it's in between Christmas and New Year and he's asked me for a bit of a favor and support himself with Belle tempt quite a large one and also a stove to go inside the bell tent and if you're familiar with that kind of setup you know that you need to make hole in the top of the canvas for the flue of the stove to pass through you can sometimes get away with passing the flue I use a window or out the door but he wants it done properly because it involves quite a little stitching and also I'm going to do a little bit of leather work which is something simple but it's just gonna reinforce that area where the actual baffle bolts onto instead of bolting it just to thin canvas we're gonna bolt it to three mil leather which is then stitched into the actual canvas itself making for a more permanent setup and it means it can be unbolted and bolted back up again repeatedly without kind of wearing away that canvas there and causing it to a te over time this is a little portable tool kit for some of my leather tools when i go somewhere and i've got a job to do for someone who wants a favour normally if i open this up we've just got to be things in here this is the metal that i usually bolt straight to the canvas we'll be making one i have leather that this straps to what we'll do those we'll go take a look at the actual tent itself the stove and then I'll go over what I'm specifically getting use to do this job when I actually come to do it so we'll take this and we'll go check out that Belton this is the Bell tent just here this is a Sibley ultimate Pro 4 metre heavy belt and this is more suited for a group of people who maybe have a vehicle of some kind of Transportation he's entrusting me to cut a hole in it a little bit nervous but I'm sure it will go well but we'll get inside and I'll have a look and see what we can do it's gonna need to mop this thing out oh I'm done with it here we are in sight very windy day today and can see how being in something heavy like this really does make it comfortable but hers the stove is here this is a nice stove actually I prefer it to the frontier one it's made in the UK and it's a KP stage traveller and also comes with a a water tank on the back that gives you hot water when you need it I'm obviously the flue is much longer than this there are some other parts on the floor over there but it's going to be going through this canvas material just at the top so this is the baffle and he's already cut the silicon hole out of the baffle there for the flue to go through now this is actually led here so you've got to be a bit careful where you can bend it very easily but you've got some holes through and it's obviously rubber on the other side there and you it comes with these two metal rings here and one goes on the outside like that so you imagine this will be on the outside of the actual tent

so this clamps down like that and this comes in from the other side inside the tent and clamps a material and then you have a baffle there that the flue can go through but as I've said before in the workshop bolting back to canvas this one layer of canvas is it's not gonna be the best in the long term you know really with a product like this you've spent a good seven hundred plus pounds on you want longevity you don't want to be worrying if you've got to take this off looking at the canvas there so um I'm not gonna use any adhesive for this I'm just gonna use a needle and thread and the reason being is if we need to make any changes to it I don't like things being permanent with glue glue is something I try and never use always just use needle and thread maybe a bit of wax here and there traditional methods that way it can be taken apart it can be mended if it needs to and it can be even be improved in the future if we need to do that I've marked out the area just here you can see all I've done really is it's measured the stove so it's approximately 18 inches away from the wall of the tank and it's quite high as well in this canvas at the top there there's always 18 inches away plus it would be fine he wants the stove here by the door so when he comes in you can put his boots down by the stove any kit can go here and you can see we've got lots of space for people to sleep and potentially stay nice and toasty so that's all really we need to do in here and this is the key make that a lever and then we're good to go

so what we gonna need to do this these are the tools I'm gonna be using to do the job with I'm going to using some thread obviously to stitch the leather baffle to the canvas I'm using tiger thread a really nice artificial wax in you style thread it's synthetic it's rot resistant is solid really and it's not gonna absorb water stuffs very very hard to break almost impossible really by pulling on it I've got a lighter because of the actual thread so he can send us off first time you've probably ever seen me with a lighter in the video but they are useful multi-tool this is just the Garba multi-tool you can use a pair of pliers or snipe nose pliers would be fine I've got a punch to actually make the holes for the m8 bolts this is a fairly decent punch actually a Stanley knife gonna need that to cut the leather out and to probably deal with a thinner one this is all I have a straight edge we have a stitch gauge here as well really useful tool so the thread sits and almost like a trench or recess in the leather meaning if you're brushing on the surface of the leather you don't wear away the thread over time and we will be using now I don't think we use this tool here don't really talk about that just yet some all's useful for just making holes pinning things in place just for pricking things to help you out a stitch all we'll be using this to do our stitching parry scissors and a dead blow hammer which is far too large but leaf Malby customs is making me a dead blow hammer and I don't want to buy one yet because his will be really nice so we're just gonna make a deal with that you could use a sharpie or a pencil to draw this on I would use a sharpie if I wanted you to see it because of the camera but I'm often just see my templating with an awl itself and just scratching to the surface of the lab I think use the other side the swated side because it's obviously a lot harder to see but this means I don't get any overspill on the leather and the footprint it's kind of small so we'll just draw this out but what I will do is I use the bolt holes and I'll actually use a sharpie for those I want a bit more accuracy there just gonna use the stanley knife to do this just take my time you can get special tools for cutting out circular things like this but you can probably tell I don't have that tend to work with very basic stuff and

I just kind of make do as I did quite a lot of crafts of berry types and like using the same tools really and lots of different things when you're cutting this out you make sure you don't tilt in at an angle you want quite a nice flat edge I'm going to cut the middle out later because I want a bit of rigidity in the piece of leather I'm working with and as soon as we take that central part out it will be very floppy basically and a bit harder to work with so we'll do that last but I'm going to tidy the edges up now we are going to use this edging tool here this is a French edging tool just gonna go all the way around smooth it off and then I'm just gonna wet it very slightly and then burnish it round it all off that and make it look a little bit more presentable

so taking it off in a smooth motion like that will make it a bit easier for you [Music]

so now do for the edging we framed it that off quite nicely I wouldn't say that that was the sort burnished finish I do if I was making a nice piece of leather work but he once solid not pretty

that'll do the job so what we'll do now if you use the stitch gauge and we'll make a gouge all the way along the outside and then we use the stitch all and start actually making our stitch holes and then we'll do all on the inside as well but I'll do that last I'm just marking this out first before I apply lots of pressure you can see I'm just pushing it in and the leather is dry enough really for us to do this I would never do this unless the leather was completely dry because you'll get some warping it isn't something you want at all

there we go [Music]

so I've gone round twice with the stitch we'll just putting a medium pressure on first just to bed it in and then gone round again just to ensure that the actual and pricking iron goes through completely so we're going to go around the inner ring now do the same thing so that's part one completed this will dry thoroughly now overnight and hope you'll join me in part two where I will be stitching this on to the actual piece of material onto the canvas and that field there that we went in earlier hopefully the weather will be better for me

I don't mind snow but wind of rain can make it a little bit tricky so hopefully you enjoyed this video I appreciate you watching I'll see you in part two take [Music]

About the Author

MCQBushcraft

MCQBushcraft

I'm a UK based outdoorsman who started hunting and fishing with my friends when I was young.

Educating yourself about your surroundings and having the core skills to sustain yourself using your environment is a lost curriculum in the United Kingdom. We are well provided for, so well that "why do anything if somebody else will do it for you". This lifestyle has drastically disconnected people from having the knowledge and skills required to spend even one night in the woods and not get hungry.

I love being outdoors and have never lost the desire to learn and practice skills that I get a sense of natural connection from. Hunting hangs controversy in the minds of many, but in my eyes there is nothing more natural if you choose to eat meat. I appreciate that not everybody hunts in moderation though.

Thanks for reading
Michael McQuilton

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