The SPIKE-6 Nail: A Good Accessory for Your Fall Camping Trip
My family and I love making trips in our camper to the Texas Gulf Coast. On one particular beach trip we set up the canopy in the sand as usual. We used the metal stakes that came with the canopy to secure it to the ground. I was so frustrated by how thin and flimsy those stakes were. They’d always get bent out of shape with every blow from the hammer. The life-span of one of those little stakes is very short. I always had to replace them and that got to be pricey. The more durable stakes were no better as they would get lost in the sand and rusty from the saltwater. Once the rust was exposed to the metal legs of my canopy, they would rust as well and ruin the canopy.
My frustration sparked a thought; ‘Our RAPTOR® SPIKE-6 nail would be a wonderful replacement for these metal stakes!’
On our next trip to Port Aransas we set up camp on hard dirt instead of sand. I brought some RAPTOR® Spike-6 nails with us and tried them in our canopy. I inserted them through the holes of the four corner legs. The body diameter of the nail was the perfect size for the grommets. The nail’s large head worked to prevent the nail from going straight through the holes in the legs. Next, came the drivability and holding test. We found that the nails drove so much easier through the hard Texas ground than the metal stakes had and securely held the canopy. The RAPTOR® nails have a large flat head which made it easier to drive straight through the ground without curving and without any damage to the nail. It was nearly impossible to successfully drive the metal stakes into the ground let alone to drive them straight through without bending.
We experienced some additional benefits since switching over the RAPTOR® for securing our tent and canopy. The metal stakes can easily get lost in the sand or dirt. This is bad for a few reasons; It can be dangerous to have a bunch of broken, rusty metal stakes hidden in areas where people may walk barefoot, the stakes will damage the blades of lawn mowers that unknowingly hit one of them and a lost stake means that more money must be spent to replace it. With RAPTOR® all of those problems go away.
The SPIKE-6 was originally created for field marking so we are able to insert colorful marking whiskers on our RAPTOR® nails which makes them very visible because the whiskers stick up. Also the RAPTOR® nails can be left in the ground because they will never rust and will not damage mower blades.
Since our trip in Port Aransas I have come up with several other resourceful life-hack uses for the RAPTOR® SPIKE nail. Look for my articles in the next editions of The RAPTOR® RANT to see how I use RAPTOR® as a practical solution for some of my small life challenges.
Amber M.,
Production and Quality Manager
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