For the last few months I’ve been playing with the concept of a Saxon style kohte. The Saxon style tent is quite popular amongst medieval market traders over here in Germany and seeing them at Hoenerfest got me thinking – could you make one out of a standard Kohte and some Jurte panels?

This idea sat in my head for a few weeks and then we tried it out at Drachenfest 2011 as, let’s be totally honest here, a lashup courtesy of myself and Truffel (pronounced Truffle cos he is one – sweet and expensive). It worked. The concept was proven and, even though it didn’t quite look right, the idea was sound. Success! Yay! Onto the shelf it went.

Until now.

Bloody Inga only went and sold one!

Without it having actually moved from concept usable by ‘tent people’ to product usable by anyone. What was she thinking???

So now I’m faced with the prospect of having to finalise and test the design in, what can only be described as, a somewhat shortened timescale (my normal timescales are something along the line of ‘yeah, yeah, I’ll get to it at some point…’) so it can be delivered to the customer and then made available for general sale. I suppose I should be grateful to Inga as the pressure and looming deadline has actually made me do some testing.

There are two main problems with this design being made from Kohte panels and Jurte roof inserts; the cross piece and the cap. Now, we could just simply manufacture new pieces and whack an exorbitant price tag on but that is never a solution that sits well with us as a company. Most people may already own a Kohte and to not re-use every part of that seems, well, untidy at the least. So the problem is how do you get from Kohte to Sax Kohte by only adding bits to what you already own?

The cap solution has turned out to be quite simple; Oval roof cap (can’t believe I own one of these and haven’t yet photographed it – duh!), quick bit of sewing to seal one side and two new eyelets. Done.

But this does introduce a new problem; the oval roof cap is slightly too long and hangs on the side panels so the middle poles will need to be a tad longer to enable it to sit properly. We could go with new poles (bad solution) or some form of slot-on extension which is more of a possibility.

The cross piece is the bigger problem.

Prototype 1 was some bits of wood lashed together and the ends of the tent sagged. Badly.

Prototype 2 performed superbly and was neat. And graceful. And then snapped under the strain.

Prototype 3 performed brilliantly too but, as you can see, is not likely to stand up to sustained use or much else.

The problem with the cross piece is the length. It needs to be 270cm long, at least. so a single pole or baton is out of the question. And it needs to take quite a bit of strain – especially if it’s being hauled up using the lashing ropes (which was how prototype 2 snapped).

So next it’s off to the workshop to see the tent guru (Inga’s dad) to discuss maybe using a third centre pole with an extension instead. If that works then all we need to manufacture is the extensions and everything else is off the shelf. Now that would be a result.

Price for this lovely construction is almost certainly going to exceed £1000 but you do get a two complete tents in one ( a Kohte and a Sax Kohte) all in a tent that can be backpacked and have a fire inside with an estimated lifespan of 30 years or more. So cost is high but value for money is excellent. This would make an excellent tent for anyone involved in LARP or even scouts who want more room than a Kohte can offer but still want the incredible versatility that they represent. Drop me a message via facebook or via the website if you’re interested.

Hopefully we’ll have the new cross piece before the end of the week and we’ll be able to put this into production soon after.

Follow The Cotton Tent Company on facebook if you want to keep up with everything we’re doing. Once I’ve completed this one I may well look at creating more historical style tents using off the shelf parts. Just because I can.