To lesson the possibility of tearing the awning from sudden wind gusts, we felt some form of guy rope tension shock absorber would be desirable. Many A'vanners we have met use the rubber "O" rings used by plumbers to seal clay sewer pipe joints. However, six of these take up a lot of space, and also seem to soon break down when in tension, as they are designed to always be in compression. The simple spring type of shock absorber seemed the way to go as they are cheap and readily available from camping shops. The only problem seemed to be that they fray the rope where it passes around the spring eye. The problem was solved by fitting a "screen door" ball bearing wheel (the type with a concave outer edge for the rope to run over) as shown in the photograph. Some dismantling of the spring is necessary to pass the "eye" through the wheel centre, but it is obvious how to do this when you have the spring in your hand. As the hole in the wheel is much bigger than the spring wire diameter, the ever faithful "two-part" builders bog can be used to fill the gap and rigidly hold the wheel in place

Pam & Keith Thomas