Bag awning

[Cat futrell]

Greetings.

We have recently re-aquired the 13', 1973, Love Bug that we had to sell 6 years ago.

With the help from the generous people on this site we did a complete rebuild.
I rigged an awning. It is gone. I'm sure that I didn't do it properly.
I stored it in the camper. I had to slide it into the track every time I set it up and take it down It was a very labor intensive chore. I rigged extension poles and ropes to stretch it out.
1. I'm not even sure how big it should be. I'm thinking it should only be as wide as the track is long. How wide is yours?
2. how is the bag attached to the shell?
3. what is the method for setup and supporting the the awnings? Poles? Brackets? Bracing? etc.

I would be very grateful for pictures of your setup.

Thanks

Thanks in advance

[Casita Greg]

I would definitely not opt for any slide-in Keder rail awning that would be wider than the track it slides into. FWIW, I got rid of the original Fiamma awning that came with my trailer, and to me, good riddance. Then I went to a "bag awning" which took up a lot of room I wasn't willing to give up either, and was a total PITA to get into the Keder rail track. That went bye-bye too. After removing the O.E. crank-out awning, I installed a simple aluminum Keder rail on the side of my trailer and just use a simple slide in awning made from Sunbrella fabric. (From Marti's Awnings, link below.) It fits into a small "stuff sack" about the size of a football and probably doesn't weigh 5 Lbs. I store it in the trailer's front closet. It only takes a few seconds to thread the awning's Keder welt into the Keder track, and then it's just setting up 3 telescoping aluminum awning poles and guy lines to 3 stakes driven into the ground. And I think it looks good as well. I didn't want to mount it up any higher because I didn't want to have to bring a step stool along in order to reach the Keder rail, which would obviously be necessary if I had chosen to mount it higher up in order to also cover the entry door. (Face it, if the weather is that bad outside that I can't take two steps to get under the awning, I'm probably not going outside anyways.) It is good enough for my needs, and I can stand under it without hitting my head on it. (I'm 6'2".) All the Keder rail mounting screws, fender washers and Ny-lock nuts are inside the overhead cabinets, so you don't see any of them either.
Works great for short stays of a day or two. If we stay anywhere for longer, I'll set up my pop-up screen tent.

https://www.martisawnings.com/

[Jon in AZ]

I’m a bit confused about what you had and what you’re wanting.

What Greg describes is a “rope-and-pole” awning. It is designed to be removed for towing and stored in a bag, hence the confusion.

A true “bag awning” is designed to hang on the trailer all the time. It has a full length metal piece on the leading edge and rafter poles that hold it out from the trailer without guy ropes. This is a bag awning…

[mary and bob]

We had a 13 foot Uhaul, so close in size to the Love Bug. We tried a rope & pole awning but did not like it, even though we had years of experience with them on our pop-up camper. For the Uhaul we installed a keder rail and bought a 7 foot Shademaker bag awning. The bag awning has adjustable rafters at each end and adjustable legs and folds and rolls into the bag. We also bought the optional center rafter. The bag awning worked good for us but there were a few negative things about it too. If we left the bag on the trailer and it rained water would get in the bag. Because we had to get an awning less than 8 feet the only option in that brand was the twist to lock legs and rafters, 8 foot and longer awnings had the better pole options. We found that if we left the awning on the trailer when traveling it would flip up rather than hang down. Since we tow with a pickup it was easy to slide the awning off when not in use or when traveling.

[F.Bishop]

Hi and congratulations on re-acquiring your Boler! We had a 1978 17’ Boler years ago and it was the best. When we purchased our Boler it came with a c channel on the side of the trailer that the original canvas rope awning slid into. It was a real pain to put up and take down and it was quite a heavy material but once it was up it was great. At any rate, we had a dog and a cat and decided that it would be great to attach a screen room to it and have it fully enclosed so that we had more room when set up. Could not find anything to fit or reasonably priced so we made our own and it was a trial and error sewing project but the end result worked great and we loved it. As for the poles, the awning came with heavy duty aluminum poles (likely from the 70’s) one for each outside corner to the ground as well as poles that fit together into pockets on the perimeter and 3 or 4 that fit between the Boler side out to the front poles which made it very sturdy. We then proceeded to make a “bag” for the awning. We cut up tarp for the bag and sewed the awning edge inside the bag, added strips of Velcro inside the bag so that when the awning fabric was rolled up and in the bag we could secure the awning with the Velcro. We also added a zipper the length of the awning cover plus more Velcro strips to the outside of the bag to secure the awning tightly together. Next step was to attach the “awning in the bag” via the rope into the C channel thus it was very similar to the bag awnings that they make today. We carried all the poles inside the Boler. When camped we just undid the outside Velcro straps, undid the zipper and voila the awning was attached and hanging did on the side of the Boler. Then we manufactured our own screen room to attach to the awning via Velcro and zippers. This is likely more info than you requested but if you are do it yourself people hopefully this will give you ideas! The most difficult part would likely be finding appropriate poles. Have attached a couple of photos to give you an idea of how it turned out.

[LarryB.]

Thinking back on my (less than $85) approach to an awning, I would recommend Casita Gregg’s final implementation (above).

Note that 4 years later, the tarp I used is still going strong with no signs of wear. Although the footstool I got from Harbor freight has been superseded by this item; I have found that when folded, it fits nicely in my Casita’s closet.

Here are a couple of youtube videos that offer an approach to inserting the awning fabric into an awning rail on the side of a travel trailer. If necessary you could use tarp clips (amazon items B0B95NKM9B or B07ZQ5STFC) to grasp the awning at the end of the rope.

[Cat futrell]

Thank you for your response. Does your screen tent attach to the camper?

[Cat futrell]

Thank you for your help.

[Cat futrell]

Thank you. Not at all too much info. How did the "roof rods" attach to the camper? Were the vertical poles at the awning outside corners free standing?

[F.Bishop]

The screen room attached to the Boler by use of black sticky Velcro attached to side of Boler and corresponding piece sewn to the side of the screen room. Worked well and very strong.

The original 1970’s awning had pockets along the side and front and poles were inserted into the pockets and secured together at the end by inserting pointed ends into corresponding holes in the front pole. Same as for the other roof poles. The poles were very strong. We secured the corner poles in case of strong winds but it was basically free standing.

I must admit that it was a fun project figuring out how it would work. Also had attached flooring and was totally enclosed under the Boler to the ground so that we were able to leave the Boler door open and our cat and dog had an extra room to enjoy with us.

It would be a lot of work to make something similar for a 13’ trailer for not a lot of extra room. There are a lot of very nice screen rooms available now that did not exist back then.

Anyways, hope this give you some ideas.

[K Ann]

What a great setup this is! Thanks for the helpful photo.

[LarryB.]

Originally Posted by Cat futrell

How did the "roof rods" attach to the camper?

Not sure what you mean by "roof rods".....

Originally Posted by Cat futrell

Were the vertical poles at the awning outside corners free standing?

Yes, however, in my implementation I attach two guy ropes to the top of each pole and anchor those two guy ropes so that they are 90ᵒ offset from each other. That keeps each outer corner of the awning taught and prevents the awning from sagging.

Originally Posted by Cat futrell

https://picasaweb.google.com/103324100019253705050

That link does not work. I believe that it is the link that you use to access/maintain a "picture album". On google, you will have to mark the album as "shareable" which will create a second url that you can use for other folks to view the album.