Cheap and Easy DIY Tent Poles

I made these DIY Tent Poles because I absolutely needed to be outdoors for the weekend.  Unfortunately the forecast was for lots of rain.  I needed a bunch of tarps set up as rain flys but my budget was already shot from the DIY Camp Sink.

Individual poles were $12 at the camp store and the cheaper ones online could not be shipped in time.  What did I do?  I improvised my own cheap DIY Tent Poles.

Lowes had 2×2 lumber in 8 feet lengths for under $2.00 each.  They came in bundles of 4 and I bought a couple bundles.  Most of them I left at 8 feet to ensure I had head room.  I also cut some down to 4 and 6 feet to put over things like generators so they would not catch so much wind.

All I did was pre-drill holes in the end of each pole.  Then I nailed in a ring shank nail to give a place to attach a tarp.

This was dead simple, took only moments, and solved my problem.  I did not want anything fancy because they were going over BBQ smokers and I didn’t want to be out much if they melted.

The set up worked well and I rolled them in the center of the tarps to ride on my roof rack for the next time I go to the land.  My plan is to use the tarps by tying one end to my van roof rack.  I will be using the paracord I cut for the bamboo dome so as not to waste 700 feet of expensive cord cut into 18 inch lengths.  the other ends I will stake out using my poles so I have nearly instant shade.