Repaired my favourite one man pop up hide

[Redditch]

This hide was my favourite. Unfortunately, it broke towards the end of the first season, after 4-5 months of almost daily use.

It's Achilles heel (as with almost all one and two man pop up hides), is they use cheap £2.50 fold up chines chairs as the base of the system. An £80.00 hide (plus £20.00 p&p to NI at the time three years ago) and the chair breaks where the rivets and bolts go through the tubes.

But, after 2 years of it sat in the loft, in bits, I decided I would attempt to repair it.

Had they still been selling this model, I would no doubt have bought another, as even setting up in the middle of a field with it, I've had corvids and pigeon land on it and around it, with me SAT IN IT.

Had many doubles and trebles out of this hide, so was determined to get it working again.

 

Read on

 

 

So, my favourite pop up hide is functional again. Not totally finished, BUT, it now has the canopy attached to the deck chair, and two brackets to stop the rear hoop falling forward onto my head

An £80.00 pop up hide that utilised a £2.50 fold up chair was doomed to fail, and unfortunately, nearly all these pop up hides, no matter how expensive, use the same chairs.

They inevitably break where the rivets go through, and the tubing then snaps at that point.

So when mine snapped (after just 4-5 months of use, I decided as the outside was still good, I would repair it, using a deck chair type chair instead of the really cheap fold up ones,

So, £10.00 for a deck chair, 2x70mm bolts with some washer nuts and some Loctite to keep the front hoops in place (drilled and bolted through the plastic armrests). Then 2x50mm bolts and washer nuts to keep the rear hoop in place (drilled and bolted through the rear upper type sections), and 2x 3x3" right angle brackets, drilled to 5.5mm to accept 5mm bolts, and cut to 1x3" and then bent backwards, and ground the edges to take the sharpness off. That prevents the rear hoop folding forwards over my head.

Total cost to repair so far about £20.00 including p&p

Now awaiting a metre of aluminium 19mm box section, which will be attacked to the foot rails and increase the height of the seating position by 3/4" which should be back to original height then, and it will then be all finished (just cut it to 2x50cm to go across the bottom foot rails)

Better than throwing away an £80.00 pop up hide, and I bet it lasts longer than that £2.50 chair that was originally fitted.

NO! It doesn't squeeze up into a 20cm dia bundle anymore, BUT, it does still fold flat, so easy enough to drop into the car or trailer .

Just waiting on a metre length of 19mm square aluminium tube to come now, which I will then saw into 2x50cm lengths, and those will be attached across the foot rails to increase the height of the stool, which should then be almost back to original (yep, could have spent £50-£60.00 on an aluminium stool that was the correct height to start with, but wanted to see if this would work first. If it breaks again, I can always replace it with another more expensive stool)

And I might yet paint the white plastic and metal bits (plus seat) with green or black, but doubt the birds will see them with me sat in it

Edited July 10, 2015 by Redditch

[Redditch]

So, 19mm square tube arrived, drilled and fitted to the chair bottom rails of the one man pop up hide, so the chair is a bit higher now.

Only have to paint the two tubing profiles now, and that will be all ready.

Used it yesterday and this morning to great effect (without the tubing) and yesterday got 27, today 15, even though what was flying was being very wary