IMPROVEMENTS IN FOLDING OR PORTABLE TENTS
Year: 1878

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Lorenzo Field at the Office of the
Commissioners of Patents on the 28th February 1878.
LORENZO FIELD, of Birmingham, in the County of Warwick, Photographic
Cabinet Maker. "IMPROVEMENTS IN FOLDING OR PORTABLE TENTS."
My Invention consists in constructing folding or portable tents in the manner
herein-after described, whereby the tent when in use has a square base, and
great stability in the tent is thereby secured; besides having increased stability,
tents made according to my Invention are very readily folded up for carriage and
unfolded for use, and when folded up are very portable.
In constructing a folding or portable tent according to my Invention, I make the
framing of the tent of four strong bars of wood or other rigid material, the said
bars being square in cross section. Those ends of the four bars, which when the
tent is in use, are situated at the apex or summit of the tent are jointed together
by a compound or cruciform axis consisting of four cylindrical metallic rods or arms
at right angles to one another, and all in the same plane. This cruciform axis may
be made in one piece by stamping, forging, or otherwise, or it may be made by
taking two cylindrical rods of iron, crossing them at their middles and welding the
crossing parts together.
By jointing the bars together the parts below the joints are capable of opening
from one another, or of closing upon one another. The jointing of the four bars is
effected by making in each bar a hole situated diagonally across the square bar.
These holes are of a size proper for the arms of the cruciform axis to take into, and
after the four arms have been put upon their respective axes, washers are placed on
the protruding ends of the said axes, and the said ends are rivetted on the said
washers, and the bars jointed together.
The inner faces of the bars, or those faces which are presented to each other, are
provided with inclined depressions near the joint holes described, and also with
chamferings to permit the bars to turn upon their axes in the directions proper to
open the framing of the tent.
The depressions described also serve as stops to limit the motion of the
bars.

page_text: A slight concavity is also made at the inner angle of each bar where the joint
hole is made.
When the four bars are expanded or opened out on their joints, a framing of a
pyramidal figure is formed, the said framing having a square base; and when the
said bars are folded or closed upon one another by pressing them together, a single
compact nearly square bar is formed.
The covering of the tent is made of pieces of canvas or fabric of a triangular
figure, the edges of the said pieces being nailed or otherwise fastened to the front
outer faces of the bars.
When the framing of the tent is expanded the triangular pieces constituting the
covering are stretched between the adjacent bars, and when the framing of the tent
is closed or collapsed nearly into the figure of a single bar, the projecting covering
is coiled and fastened upon it after the manner of coiling and fastening the covering
of an umbrella.
Around the jointed upper ends of the bars of the tent framing, a cap is fixed for
covering the apex of the tent and making it waterproof at that part.
The bottoms or base ends of the bars of the tent framing may be furnished with
eyes or loops, through which pins or pegs are driven for fixing the tent securely to
the ground when in use; or the base ends of the bars may be pointed for entering
the ground.