I came across this wall tent for sale on facebook for $75 and while it looks somewhat battered, that's an absolute steal for a canvas tent. I went to go buy it, and the guy selling it said that he'd camped in it as a child--and he was currently 92 years old. So. Yeah. It's an old tent.
It's actually in decent shape, though, so I'm going to see about getting it into usable form as a backup/storage tent for historical and fantasy camping. And I've been wanting to experiment with dyeing a tent, but haven't wanted to risk ruining an expensive one--so this is perfect as a test.
I used a clean trash can, 30 gallons of water, and half a gallon of flat interior acrylic paint to get this robin's egg blue. It's still drying--I wanted a pale color to use as a base, with the intention of either painting darker stripes or contrasting patterns as an accent. I dunked the whole tent into the trash can of paint water, and spread it out to dry. It is a bit splotchy, but it's probably close to 80 lbs dry, so with the added weight of water saturation, and a 12x14 normal footprint, it gets pretty hard to maneuver by myself. I am going to have to reapply waterproofing to this tent, due to its age, but for now it works to my advantage while dyeing it. I will update as this process continues, but for now it seems like a good way to get non-manufacturer color onto a natural fiber tent.
