How To Enlarge Your Easy Up Anchoring Holes
When you take a close look at your easy up or pop up gazebos feet, you'll notice it has certain size holes. These are generic and made for the old fashioned tent stakes one would hammer in with a mallet or lump pound type hammer.
In most circumstances you'll notice these holes will be too small in diameter for your GroundGrabbas to screw into the ground through. Try it first to make sure and see for yourself if your GroundGrabba screw-in drill-in stakes can or cannot screw through those holes.
Now I'm going to tell you how I drilled out and enlarged the holes of my Ezy Up feet. In particular making the center hole larger to take it from a hole diameter of around 1/2” or 12mm where GroundGrabba won't go through to 1” or 25mm where it will screw through.
The holes of the feet of our Easy Up Gazebo were too small for the threads and the flights to screw through. So let me explain to you how I drilled the holes of our Ezy Up Pop Up Garage a bit wide to 1” or 25mm for much greater ground holding ability in conjunction with our GroundGrabbas.
Tools and Equipment you will need:
1x (or 2 if you have them) Cordless or mains powered drill
1” (25mm) for steel cutting hole saw
1x (or 4x) Block of timber to place under the foot of the easy up whilst you drill
2x (or 8x) Hex head screws of at least 1” in length
1x Hex driver socket to drive the two Hex head screws into the timber to hold the foot in place whilst you drill
Half Moon file to take sharp edges off the inner new hole
Steel spray Primer paint
Top coat finish color spray paint.
Drop sheet/ protection ground covering to catch overspray
1/ Set up your easy up or pop up gazebo
2/ Leg #1, Place the timber block beneath the foot of your ezy Up or Pop-Up
3/ Secure your socket driver into your drill
4/ Determine which holes you will use to secure the foot of your easy up to the timber
5/ Drive the Hex screws into the timber so the easy up foot is now steadfastly in place
6/ Remove the hex driver from your drill and replace it with your 1” /25mm hole saw
7/ Holding the drill with two hands line up the pilot drill bit of the hole saw to the center of the hole you are about to enlarge.
8/ Press down so the drill bit tip dents into the timber and start drilling slowly until the teeth of the hole saw engage with the metal foot of your easy up
9/ Holding the drill very stable and perpendicular drill at a slow speed so you don’t overheat and burn the teeth of your hole saw.
10/ Once you have cut/drilled through the metal, withdraw your drill and hole saw from the new hole.
11/ Remove the hole saw from your drill and replace it with the hex driver again.
12/ Unscrew/ remove the two hex screws from the metal foot of the easy up.
13/ Move the timber away from the hole
14/ Using your half moon file, file the sharp edges and burrs off the hole inner so there are no sharp edges to injure yourself or someone else.
15/ Place the drop sheet or overspray protection on the ground under the foot and wipe the foot clean of any filing residue or grease or grime ready for painting
16/ Give the area around the hole a light dusting of metal primer both from the top and the bottom.
17/ Wait for the primer paint to dry and repeat the process of priming it once or twice more.
18/ Once finally dry, it is time for the top coats. Again a light coat is best and then repeat it once or twice more each time waiting for the previous coat to dry before applying another coat.
Now to do the other legs. You could streamline your process by using four blocks of wood and eight screws so you just go from leg to leg methodically.
Now that you've finished you’ll see how much easier it is to deploy your GroundGrabbas directly into the feet of your Easy Up without the need for adaptors.
One thing though, the 1”hole is now very close to the same diameter as the collar under the Hex Head of your GroundGrabba. This means it is possible for the GroundGrabba head to slip through the new holes you’ve created. If the heads of the GroundGraba are off-set then it is not a problem. However if you want to be sure the heads won't slip through then you can use one of our HookWashers.
You will need to hold the HookWasher on a little angle as you screw your GroundGrabba flights through the tear drop shaped hole. Once you’ve passed the flights you simply slide it up the shaft.
