Shaun

On Apr 27, 2011, at 8:17 PM, Shaun Galanos wrote:

Hey there,

After 6 or so years on the playa – the playa dome let me down a few times last year. I’m not bummed at all – I bought it from my neighbors and we’ve had a good run with it.

In the spirit of conservation, recycling and reusing – I would like to make some repairs to it.

A few of the panels have started ripping where the grommets meet the panel. This led to some inconsistancies in the tension distribution and my dome was flattened twice last year. Good thing I had some spare grip clips and was able to make some emergency repairs.

Before going back out this year – I would like to repair the panels.

Do you have any suggestions on how I can go about doing this? Sew extra material onto the corners of the failing panels?

—this will work and is cost effective but if cover is failing all over then repair can be short lived

What do you recommend?

—the way to do this is take the dome down; locate the damage; remove the grip clip (you can brake the clip off with pliers if you have a replacement clip; label with a making pen the order and orientations of the layers of panels; cut and sew by hand or machine a patch to replace the damaged area (use strong thread and 1/8″ stitching); mark and trim patch to size; re-layer (in the right order and orientation) the panels; attach the clip (best to first practice “clipping” till you can clip 3 to 4 layers); proceed to next area; set up dome; use 100% silicone rubber caulk to seal seam with dome up (this way seam is tensioned and glue sets to seal needle holes);

Thanks for your help, I love my dome and hope to squeeze some more years out of it.

—good for you

best
Shaun