Tent Stakes on Amazon
Are you researching tent stakes on Amazon or are you going to Amazon looking for a particular type and style of tent stakes?
You don’t need to be a genius to know that Amazon is a great platform that has a huge selection of tent takes available that have been listed by a multitude of sellers. It is a great way to find so many in one place.
Some sellers sell tent stakes on Amazon amongst an assortment of dozens or hundreds of items non-related to tent stakes just to make a sale without specializing in them. Whilst other sellers who list tent stakes may specialize in camping products.
Introducing The Ground Anchor
Here at GroundGrabba, we specialize in just tent stakes. To be even more accurate our products surpass that of a common tent stake and step over into what we call ground anchors.
What is the difference between the tent stakes you may find on Amazon and GroundGrabba ground anchors?
Before I get to that I’d like to let you know that our genuine GroundGrabba ground anchors are also available on Amazon.com but why not buy from the source here where you have direct access to the manufacturer and can see the very latest in our ground anchoring products and research?
The Difference Between Tent Stakes and Ground Anchors
Back to what makes our GroundGrabba ground anchors different from the tent stakes you will find on Amazon.
It’s all about the flights and the ability to use your cordless drill or your impact wrench to drive our ground anchors into the ground.
Let me explain… Standard or traditional tent stakes are a pretty basic device invented probably by caveman. It was the Romans who lifted the common timber stake to new heights by creating steel tent stakes. So pretty much there has been zero innovation in staking for 2,000 years!
How It Works
Enter the cordless drill and auger. By using an adaptation of an auger design our GroundGrabba ground anchor stakes grip the ground under the ground. By using the weight of the surrounding ground and the structure of the ground with what is contained in it like grass interwoven and its roots interwoven and that of other flora roots this adds even more to GroundGrabbas ability to hold down many times more than old fashioned spike tent stakes.
Even without grass and root networks, the physics of the ground density and ground weight create a kind of plug shape of earth that bears down on the flights at the base of the stake. The greater the density of the ground, the broader the shape of the plug of earth. The plug shape is kind of like an upside-down cone or umbrella in shape.
The deeper down our GroundGrabba ground anchor stakes reach, the greater their anchoring force.
The Typical Amazon Tent Stake Versus a GroundGrabba Ground Anchor
(NOTE this image is to be updated soon with the correct set)
As you can see from the above images, the shape of the plug or cone of our GroundGrabba versus that of a conventional tent stake you may find on Amazon differs quite a bit.
The conventional tent stake has barely any plug shape and therefore very little weight of the ground holding it. Therefore, for a vertical load, conventional tent stakes are a very poor solution.
The tent stake pin designs that flood Amazon mainly relies on a sideway ground resistance hold.
Typically, the pin-shaped steel or aluminum tent stake is hammered into the ground at an angle somewhere between 45 degrees away from the intended load up to 90 degrees vertical.
By doing this the tent stake cannot reach down to its full length and therefore has even less groundmass weight holding it down which is kind of like a double whammy of losses.
To achieve ground holding the shaft of the typical Amazon tent stake presses up against the ground relying on the ground density and pressure against its shaft. Depending on the load of course this can work well if the ground is dry or there are no sudden forces to shock the tent stake out of the ground like a sudden gust of wind hitting your shade canopy.
Catastrophic Versus Controlled Failure
However, if the ground is wet, the typical pin-type steel tent stake loses its holding integrity, and also if there is a sudden gust of wind there is no ground anchoring effect at all and the steel tent stake can haul out within a fraction of a second in what we call a catastrophic failure.
Now compare the typical Amazon steel or aluminum tent stake to our GroundGrabba screw-in auger style ground anchors.
Using your cordless drill or impact wrench you drive your GroundGrabba down vertically. This gives maximum depth and therefore groundmass and weight and clamping pressure pressing down on top of the flights or spirals that extend out from the shaft. If you think about it, it is quite logical really.
Then using the appropriate adaptor, you attach your load, be it vertical or angled like a guy rope. If the load is vertical, the greater the density of the ground, the greater the hold downforce due to the larger plug or cone shape area of surrounding earth weighing down on top of the flights.
If your load is angled like that from a guy rope, then you get even more ground holding as not only is there the initial cone shape of earth weighing down but now that shape elongates to create a larger kind of warped cone shape and lastly also the shaft pressing against the ground creates even more resistance.
So, you get a kind of triple ground anchoring effect!
When a sudden gust of wind comes along and if it is strong enough for your GroundGrabba to lose its grip, it will do so at a slower rate. The deeper the GroundGrabba, the slower the rate, and therefore we call this a controlled failure as it lets go slowly in comparison.
How To Adapt GroundGrabbas To Your Applications
Getting back to the adaptors to make using your GroundGrabbas more effective. At the time of writing this blog we currently have three varieties of adaptors available:
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We have others currently on the drawing board soon to be produced such as:
- The Fang
- The Multi Saddle
- Clamp It Up
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Check out our online store to see if these are now available.
We are continually looking for ways to help expand the applications that GroundGrabbas can be used for. If you cannot find a solution for your application, please contact us to let us know how we can help you achieve the ground anchoring you are looking for.
How to Deploy Your GroundGrabba Ground Anchor Products
Although not rocket science, to install your GroundGrabbas takes a little more practice and expertise than hammering in your everyday Amazon tent stake.
First, you will need a decent-quality cordless drill with plenty of torque. My first cordless drill had 65Nm or 48ft-lbs and it took its toll on the drill. My next drill which I still use today has 125Nm or 92ft-lb of torque and handles the task much better.
However, I have nothing yet that beats my large cordless impact wrench (rattle gun) which has over a whopping 1,000Nm or 740ft-lb of torque!
Please note: Only use impact-type drills with our GroundGrabba Pro steel ground anchors.
Then, to adapt to the 19mm ¾” hex head you will need a socket for your drill.
You will find on our website a medium-duty hex socket driver that can clip into your impact driver BUT for chunkier heavy-duty impact wrenches, you will need a different socket to suit.
Steps to deploy
- Make sure that there are no underground dangers such as services not limited to electricity, gas, communications, water, sewerage/effluent, drainage.
- Place the pointed tip of the GroundGrabba against the ground where you need to deploy it.
- Place the 19mm ¾” socket (which is already in the drill ready for use) on top of the GroundGrabba hex head.
- Hold the drill steady with a tight grip in BOTH HANDS, one on the handle the other on top of the drill body so you can push down.
- Make sure your feet are about 12” or 300mm apart and you have a sure footing and that…
- The drill handle is just on the inside of your RIGHT leg (if using a longer GroundGrabba you may only be able to achieve this after the GroundGrabba has wound itself down far enough) which helps prevent wrist injury should the drill handle want to twist counter-clockwise.
- Start your drill slowly (Best on a medium safety torque setting until you are competent with being able to increase it) pressing down on the drill.
- Keep the speed slow with downward force until you feel your drill slow down more as the flights bite into the ground and start to draw themselves downward.
- As the GroundGrabba draws itself down, if you choose you may now reduce the downforce.
- When the hex head of the GroundGrabba reaches almost ground level you can stop.
See the video here:
Steps to Extraction
- Remove any loose attachments or tie downs from your GroundGrabba before starting the extraction process.
- Place the 19mm ¾” socket (which is already in the drill ready for use) on top of the GroundGrabba hex head.
- Hold the drill steady with a tight grip in BOTH HANDS, one on the handle the other on top of the drill body so you can push down.
- Make sure your feet are about 12” or 300mm apart and you have a sure footing and that…
- The drill handle is just on the inside of your LEFT leg which helps prevent wrist injury should the drill handle want to twist clockwise.
- Start your drill slowly or if experienced it’s ok to use high speed (Best on a medium safety torque setting until you are competent with being able to increase it) pressing down on the drill.
- Keep the speed slow (or high speed when experienced) with adownward force to keep the drill socket connected to the hex head and the GroundGrabba will start rising.
See the video here:
See, as I said, deploying your GroundGrabbas is not rocket science but you do need a little more expertise and equipment than your average tent stake that you find on Amazon.
How Strong Are GroundGrabbas Compared To Tent Stakes Found On Amazon?
GroundGrabba Pro Series are galvanized and made of a special blend of carbon steel that has been heat-treated for even greater strength. The flights (spirals) are full-length welded to the shaft with a non-sharp tapered leading edge and the hex heads are forged as part of the shaft. We could have opted for cheaper manufacturing methods like a thin zinc coating or friction welding the head or just a few spot welds for the flights or just roughly cut flights that may injure a user but then, they just wouldn’t meet our strict heavy duty and quality criteria and we couldn’t offer our customers a genuine lifetime replacement warranty.
Given Amazon has such a huge variety of tent stakes you will find a range of quality and strength there. So be sure that you match the tent stake you need with the task it is needed for.
Do you need a tent stake or a ground anchor? Do you need something heavy-duty that comes with a lifetime replacement warranty and that will last lifetimes or are you happy if they bend, break or if they don’t work that you can throw them away and start again? What’s that saying again?... Poor man pays twice…I sometimes forget that one myself!
In What Ground Types Can GroundGrabbas Be Used?
A rule of thumb to know what type of ground types you can use GroundGrabbas is if you can use a traditional tent stake as you’d find on Amazon then you can use a GroundGrabba.
If the ground is too hard then just like a hammer-in tent stake that won’t penetrate the ground, your GroundGrabba won’t be able to either BUT we recommend for hard grounds that you drill a ½” or 12mm pilot hole to help.
Just like you’d need to drill a hole in a brick wall or into concrete to use a screw, so to you’ll need to create a pilot hole first for any chance of using your GroundGrabbas.
Given there are currently four varieties of GroundGrabbas, you will need to match up the type with the task and ground type you intend to use them in.
One type does not fit all. Back when I started the journey to create a drill driven screw-in tent stake I found out after many prototypes that despite my desire to come up with THE ONE perfect tent stake that would work in all situations and all environments, I quickly found out that it was a flawed notion I held.
For example, for sand or soft grounds or heavy loads, a short and thin tent stake is just a waste of time and in hard grounds, a broad and long conventional sand stake just wouldn’t work either.
That is why we currently have three steel and one nylon GroundGrabba.
- GroundGrabba Pro 12” 300mm steel for harder to average semi-soft ground.
- GroundGrabba Pro 18” 450mm steel for not quite as hard to soft grounds including sand.
- GroundGrabba Pro 24” 600mm steel for not quite as hard to soft grounds including sand but with much higher anchoring ability.
- GroundGrabba Lite 15 ¾” 400mm nylon for soft ground and sand only and NOT for vertical loads in soft sand.
Just remember our steel Pro series GroundGrabbas are not toys, they are serious quality heavyduty tools for your bag of tricks to hold down your outdoor equipment such as tents, tarps, easy ups, gazebos, pop-up garages, shade canopies, horse jumps, signposts, road barriers, jersey barriers, sports goals, volleyball nets, boats, flag poles, jumping castles, outdoor play equipment like swing sets and trampolines, electric bear fences, dear hides, traps, hurricane tree support, hurricane tie-downs for your RV, annexes and more.
Now that you are armed with a bit more information about ground anchoring versus tent stakes (the type of which you will find in abundance on Amazon) you’re in a better position to get the right stake or ground anchor for your tasks.
Be well.
David Levine
Inventor/creator GroundGrabba