Owner's Manuals for the Dragonwing Pavilions

The following links take you to owner's manuals for the various tents we've made over the years. Besides being of historical interest to tent mavens, they are also available for downloading for those customers who still have the tents but have parted company with the original owner's manuals over the years. There's every reason to think that many of these tents ... particularly the ones made with heavy canvas such as Pyrotone or Fyrecoat ... are still in service even after twenty years.

If you're one of those people, be aware that the tents, and their corresponding manuals, have undergone many changes over the years. Therefore, be sure that the manual is for your particular tent. If you have doubts about when the tent was made, you can find out by finding the label and noting the "serial number" or "control number" listed thereon. Then drop us a line or give us a call. We maintain records on every tent we've sold, and can quickly identify the particular version of your tent and the owner's manual that corresponds to it. If there's no label, that means that:

it's not one of our tents. There are a few copies and clones around, but you should be able to find enough information in the various manuals to help you use your tent. Read the manuals carefully to see which one best matches your tent.
the previous owner removed the label. It's worth calling us anyway, because we can sometimes trace the tent through its colors, location, or some other identifying feature.
it's a sunshade, which never had one of our labels. Since the sunshades itself were functionally identical, although they have been continually refined over the years, you can use the latest version of the owner's manual with any of them. I've included the originals in the links to give you an idea of how we've changed our setup plans over the years.

As for the formats, the manuals for the first tents are presented as JPEG images, page py page. These are scans from the originals, or from first copies of the manual. We didn't get around to producing our manuals in an entirely electronic format until the mid-nineties. From that time on, we produced them as Microsoft Word documents, and the manuals from then to the present exist mainly in that form. To save space on our web site, we've converted them to PDF files, which can be viewed with Adobe Acrobat Reader, a free program available from adobe systems if your browser doesn't want to display them, you can still download them by selecting them and choosing the "save link as ..." or "save target as ..." option. A few manuals are also available in HTML format. These are the first ones we put on the Web as a service to our customers and to those who wanted to see what they were getting into before they plunked down their money.

Sunshades

Sunshade 2006-Present

The most up-to-date version of the sunshade manual, incorporating the latest set-up methods. If you need an owner's manual for your sunshade, any size, model or year, this is the one you'll want. The addendum mentioned below is incorporated in this manual. This is an Adobe Acrobat PDF file.

Sunshade manual, 1987 to 1996

Included for historical reasons only. You don't really need this one.

Sunshade 1996 to 2006

Again, included for historical reasons only. This is an Adobe Acrobat PDF file.

Addendum to the Sunshade Manual for those who ordered the complete package with stakes, ropes, and poles

Again, this is for historical reasons. It was provided to help the customers figure out which ropes and stakes go where. The latest manual covers this, as well

Square Tents

The first tent series Dragonwing made, these were all were sold without frames.

Square Pavilion 1987-1994

Round Tents

The second tent series Dragonwing made, these were were sold without frames from 1987 to 1996. From 1996 to 2003, they were sold with a frame using a ring and a wind prop to stabilize the ring in winds. This configuration was replaced in 2003 with an improved ring system using ropes to tether the ring to the center pole, eliminating the need for a wind prop. After 2002, they were also offered with an optional hub-and-spoke frame. (Note that the two sizes offered in this optional configuration had their own versions of the owners manual.)

Round Pavilion 1987 to 1996

The first tent series Dragonwing made, all sold without frames

Round Pavilion 1996 to 2003

Sold with frames using a ring to support the eaves, and a wind prop (rather than a rope tether system) to stabilize the ring in winds.

Round Pavilion 2003 to 2006

Sold with frames using a ring to support the eaves and a rope tether system (rather than a wind prop) to stabilize the ring in winds.

12' Round Spoke Pavilion 2001 to 2006

Sold with frames using an optional hub-and-spoke system to support the eaves.This is an Adobe Acrobat PDF file.

14' Round Spoke Pavilion 2001 to 2006

Sold with frames using an optional hub-and-spoke system to support the eaves. This is an Adobe Acrobat PDF file.

Addendum to Owner's Manual for Round Pavilions Without Fitted Ground Cloths

This tells you how to figure out where the sidewalls stake down if you don't have one of our ground cloths for a guide. It was originally written for the wind-prop frame, but it would work as easily for any of the others if you substitute some sort of measuring device for the wind prop.

Octagon Tents

These were a subset of the round tents, but had eight sides instead of twelve. These tents were made only in one size, which was 11' measured along the flat edges at the base, and for that reason they were also referred to as "11 foot round" pavilions. to distinguish them from the 12' rounds which were nearly identical in size. Their frames were just different enough to mandate their own owner's manuals and methods of set-up.

11' Octagon Pavilion 1997 to 2003

Sold with frames using a ring to support the eaves, and a wind prop (rather than a rope tether system) to stabilize the ring in winds.

11' Octagon Pavilion 2003 to 2006

Sold with frames using a ring to support the eaves, and a rope tether system (rather than a wind prop) to stabilize the ring in winds.

11' Octagon Spoke Pavilion 2003 to 2006

Sold with frames using an optional hub-and-spoke system to support the eaves. This is an Adobe Acrobat PDF file.

Oval Tents

These were made in two series. The first series, from 1988 to 1996, were fabric only. The second series, from 1996 to 2004, used a modified ring-style frame.

Oval Pavilion 1988 to 1996

These were all sold without frames

Oval Pavilion 1996 to 2004

These were furnished with frames that did not change significantly (except for minor improvements) during its production. This is an Adobe Acrobat PDF file.