Introduction
Toucan patio umbrellas
In June 2018, we bought two Toucan Outdoor Deluxe 10' Offset Blue Patio Umbrellas. These things are great. Like most of these type of umbrellas, they can be unstable, so we zip-tie the poles to the pool fence using a couple of 14" UV resistant, 120lb breaking strain zip ties for the summer.
The umbrella's are long lasting. They have to put up with long hot Indiana summers with a lot of rain and storms. We partially disassemble them when the pool is closed in October and put them in the the garage for the winter.
One minor annoyance is that once or twice the nylon string that raises and lowers the umbrellas has snapped and had to be replaced. Years ago we had our sash windows replaced. I kept the window cords from those and use them to replace the umbrella string. 4mm nylon sash cord has a breaking strain of around 300lb when new, which was many years ago. In June 2025, one of them snapped and I decided to restring it with 4mm nylon paracord which has a breaking strain of 1,000lb.
This page looks at how I took did this.
Restringing
Restringing these umbreallas is not diffficult but can be fiddly. The first thing to be done is to lift the top pole and umbrealla up and out of the lower pole so it can be laid on the ground. The old cord then can be removed.
Obviously it will vary on the type of umbrella, but I have found I use 10 to 11 ft of new cord when doing this.
Looking inside the umbrella, you may see a small flat disk in the centre of it. Lever this out with a small screwdriver and simply pull on the cord knot inside it. This part of the broken cord should simply pull out.
Removing the umbrella end of the broken cord
The other end of the cord terminates in the winder housing and can a little more complcated to remove. When I came to remove the screws in the cover of this mechanism I found one of the screws had rusted and I stripped the head of it on my first try at removing it. I found that by using a 3/32" drill bit I could drill out the screw and by using a pair of long-nosed pliars, could remove the threads of the screw from the plastic receptacle without damaging it.
The umbrella winder face plate
The winder mechanism housing is usually filled with rusty water. Rain enters the hollow tubes of the umbrella and naturally collects in the mechanism housing.
The umbrella winder without its face plate
The mechanism inside the winder looks fairly complicated and consists of a ratchet, a cog, various locking washers, and a nut to hold everything together. Clean the surface water off the mechanism and undo the large nut holding everything together. Carefully remove the various parts under the nut and keep the pieces in order as they have to be put back together properly later.
The winder mechanism removed from the winder
The winder end of the umbrella cord
With the mechanism removed it can now be seen that this end of the cord passes through a hole in the winder shaft and is tied off with a knot. Remove this end of the cord, remove the water from the mechanism housing, clean and oil the various parts of the mechanism removed previously.
From inside the umbrella, thread new cord through the hole where the spokes combine, and up though the pole where the second set of spokes join. From the outside of the umbrella, thread the new cord through the pole joint, over the pulley and through the umbrella stand back down to the winder. Push the cord through the winder shaft hole and tie it off with a knot.
Threading the cord through the hole in winding shaft can be a bit of a problem, but there are methods to make it easier.
Plain, uncovered cord
For a plain, uncovered cord such as the nylon window sash cord I have used before, melt the end of the cord and using a knife, blade or scissors, trim the end to a point.
Covered cord
For covered cord such as paracord, pull the cover back an inch or so and cut off the inner strands. Pull the cover back to where it should be and pass that through the hole.
Using either method, once the tip of the cord is through the hole, the rest of it should be much easier to pull through.
Reassemble the cleaned and oiled winding mechanism parts removed earlier and replace the cover.
Reassembly of the cleaned and oiled winding mechanism parts
Reassemble any parts of hte umbrella and poles that were dismantled.
Reassemble any parts of hte umbrella and poles that were dismantled
From the inside of the umbrella and With the umbrella down, pull the cord fairly tight and tie a knot in it where it enters the frst hole where the spokes combine. Trim the cord and it should now work properly again.
Tying the last knot