Rebar substitutes (light weight)

[gyre]

W stakes?
What is that?

I like the three and four edged military and outdoor stakes.

Steel, hardened aluminum, or magnesium or titanium alloy.

They have a hook that can be pulled out with the edge of the stakes.
Best feature.

[Eddie]

I was thinking something along the lines of this would work nicely.
http://www.homedepot.com/h_d1/N-5yc1v/R ... key=Search

[Bob]

For what? The Cafe uses 40" screw anchors, but they're holding onto a couple hundred feet of 5/16" wire rope.

I've been using the 9" military type W-stakes for our flea-market type 3/4" EMT shade frame. They have a hole you can put a short 1/4" cord loop through, so you have something to tie the guy lines onto after you pound them a couple inches below the ground surface. The surplus store in Berkeley has them pretty cheap.

[lemur]

if you have enough of these you can hold down most tents out there and some smaller structures.., just have lots points for guy lines on your tent and youll be able to handle 70mph no problem..

as Bob mentions with the W stakes... Get them a few inches down under the surface, theyll hold like champs. you dont need no stinkin rebar for your walmart specials

[Eddie]

if you have enough of these you can hold down most tents out there and some smaller structures.., just have lots points for guy lines on your tent and youll be able to handle 70mph no problem..

as Bob mentions with the W stakes... Get them a few inches down under the surface, theyll hold like champs. you dont need no stinkin rebar for your walmart specials

So the MSR Groundhogs will hold fine? I was hesitant because most say the first 6" of the playa is very crumbly and you need to get past that for support. But if you've had good results with them then great!! I have like 20 of those anyway. They're the strongest stakes I have and I have a jillion. They are also small and easy to pack, I'm coming in on a motorcycle so rebar is out of the question for me.

What are you supporting with those? Are you using regular guyline rope? I've got plenty of 550 and will use maybe a 6-12" section of strong bungee rope inline somewhere to if any wind does start to put force on my tent or shade structure the bungee will allow for some give and spring back.

[Bob]

Should be fine for most backpacking/family type tents if you pound them in a couple inches below the surface.

The rebar thing is a legacy of cheapskates dumpster-diving for camping gear.

[theCryptofishist]

The rebar thing is a legacy of cheapskates dumpster-diving for camping gear.

Aha! I love finding this out. I think all sorts of odd practice gets encoded in "common wisdom" for equally silly reasons.

[Eddie]

The rebar thing is a legacy of cheapskates dumpster-diving for camping gear.

I kinda figured as much. A set of quality stakes is cheaper than rebar and a helluva lot smaller and lighter. Maybe whoever started the trend bought a cheap tent with those little skewer stakes that are worthless unless you're on soft dirt with no wind and thought all tent stakes were like that.

I have an idea to use two stakes with 3 guylines mated with a ring forming a Y shape. 1 guyline to the tent attached to the ring, two guylines attached to the rings to two separate stakes about a foot apart. The guyline attached to the tent would be solid, the two attached to the stakes would use a taught hitch knot. This way you can tighten easy when need be and if one gives up the other is there to fall back on. This if course is just in case since I personally do not have rebar or giant stakes with me and do not plan on using them.

Snow and ice stakes would probably work very well, no need to get the super expensive titanium ones either then. They are shaped similarly to the military stakes but longer and have holes every inch through them (so you can tie off a guyline in the middle and bury them in soft snow).

They look like these.

[Bob]

Thinking twice, good chance you'd ruin thin stakes in driving or pulling them. Below a few inches deep, playa soil can be similar to hardpan or adobe. The military stakes are often less than a buck a piece and very forgiving in use.

[Eddie]

Bob, you changing your mind on me now? The above style stakes are often chiseled into ice.

[theCryptofishist]

I dunno, maybe ice is more likely to allow something to enter it, than hardpan playa is. There may be multiple issues.

[Bob]

I generally try to think of what the average person is going to do to stuff, eg hit it off-center with a waffle-face hammer, twist it out with vice grips, etc. At $140 a dozen, seems like a pricey gamble. And they're snow pegs, not ice pitons.

The skinny pegs I've seen at REI, like the MSR, seem adequate for small to medium sized tents and shade awnings.

[lemur]

i pound my aluminium stakes with a wood block or non-metal faced mallet.

anything being pounded into the playa is pretty easy to mangle..with the wrong tools or idea of what youre doing you can expend a ton of energy on doing it wrong and breaking all your stuff in the process..

hell, even rebar is easy enough to bend.. that playa is really hard.

[Bob]