My Homemade Awning

Awnings seem to be so expensive or too heavy and cumbersome to suit my needs, 

so I embarked on a project to try and find a cheap, lightweight, durable 

and easy to set up/take down awning.

Here's what I came up with...  

I used a small military tarp, a tent pole from my REI Hobitat family tent, a long 

strip of webbing, a length of 550 cord and an aluminum awning rail.

I used my awning for the first time at the Black Rock Rendezvous in the very windy, 

Black Rock Desert and it held up great.  

I bolted the awning rail to the side of my Bobcat.  I sewed a small rope into a strip of 

fabric, creating a keder welt (you can also buy pre-made keder welts online).

I took a long strip of nylon webbing and hammered in two grommets on each

end, into which I placed the ends of my tent pole and a stakes at each end.  

I only need a single guy line in the middle of the awning that was pulled taught

and staked with a tent stake.  

I was able to really pull this awning out tightly and was amazed at how stable it was.

Because the tarp I used is relatively small, it doesn't provide a huge swath of shade

underneath, but that can be fixed by either using a larger tarp, fixing "curtains" to 

hang down from the front or sides, or by simply strategically angling the awning 

side of the truck to face northeast, where it can best take advantage of the angle of 

the sun. It still provided ample shade for two chairs and a lazy dog to be quite 

comfortable under.

The whole thing rolls up to the size of a small backpacking tent and only weighs 

a few pounds.  I'll probably only use it when I'm camping in the shadeless desert, 

but it's small and light enough to take with me on all trips.  I've yet to experience 

how much rain protection it will provide, if any, but I'm sure it would be very 

pleasant to be under in a light rain.

I'm sure a lot of you WTW'ers can improve upon this design, but I wanted to share it 

because $700.00 for an awning is a lot to pay for a little slice of shade.