How to make a supersize tent peg

Provide a cutting guide by marking out the shape of the peg. I used a long length of wood to make handling and 'whittling' easier and safer.

Lacking a vice to hold the wood whilst cutting with a jigsaw, the Ray Mears approach soon had the peg shape formed. He would have taken just a couple of minutes to complete the job, no doubt. Note the industrial safety footwear.

The saw proved useful cutting the guyline notch.

Losing the rough edges was essential; by this time the peg had assumed the status of a sculpture and had to be shaped to my will.

Sandpapering can be very therapeutic.

At last – cutting the peg to length.

Drilling a hole for the handy loop that will help me pull it out of the ground and hang it up to dry.

A simple bracket screwed to the end should stop it splintering when being hammered into the ground.

A handy loop secured with a simple but reliable reef knot.

A long soak in preservative should help to make it last a few years. I left the top until later to avoid mucky hands but might yet paint it with a luminous happy face.