Cuben Fiber Meet My Tensometer!

[David Olsen]

Sewn strips would be good. There are a lot of variables
there too.

[Dan @ Durston Gear]

From MLD's site:

"We use unique bonding tape with 3X the UV inhibitors vs other common 3M style tapes. We have never had a Cuben tarp returned for failure in the field….We feel confident in it's strength due to bonded ridge line seams and bonded edge tie out reinforcements."

Reading between the lines gives me the impression that MLD's tape performs similar to 3M [9485 PC] tape, but with the advantage of additional UV inhibitors. If there was other significant advantages you'd think they would have been mentioned alongside the increased UV resistance.

With that said, we need to be careful in this thread not to simply praise the strongest bond and disregard perfectly good products that are plenty strong, but not the strongest, as they may have other advantages. There are a lot of factors besides strength that makes a good adhesive and we don't want to lose sight of that. Some other characteristics that are important as well are ease of use, UV resistance, weight, does it harden the fabric? etc. Lawson had a good example of this with the contact cement. It's very strong but difficult to use as it sets instantly so it only has limited usefulness. Ultimately a table ranking bonding methods on a variety of criteria would be extremely helpful and allow one to choose the best adhesive for their situation.

From the initial testing in this thread, it appears that the popular tapes (3M, Quest etc) are likely to be the lowest performers, but they have the advantage of being substantially easier to work with on straight seams. Gluing long seams is very time consuming.

Since what is actually being bonded together is the mylar film and since the mylar films are the same for all of the light (.08) variations of cuben, you'd expect to get similar results (lbs of force) with any given bonding technique regardless of what weight of cuben you are using, up until the point where the cuben itself is failing. If a certain bonding technique is yielding results around 30-40% and you are happy with that bond strength, then it seems like you may as well use a lighter weight of cuben since a tarp is only as strong as it's weakest link.

[Roger Caffin]

> we need to be careful in this thread not to simply praise the strongest bond and
> disregard perfectly good products that are plenty strong, but not the strongest.
> There are a lot of factors besides strength that makes a good adhesive and we don't
> want to lose site of that. Some other characteristics that are important as well are
> ease of use, UV resistance, weight, does it harden the fabric? etc.

Very good point.
Flexibility is very important. Ease of use is important. UV resistance is important. I guess cost is important too.
OK, all of these sorts of things need to be considered.

Go guys, go!

Cheers

[Steven Evans]

Sewn strips would be good. There are a lot of variables
there too.

David, it was actually your posts that lead me to say that. Obviously, you have been working with the material for a while and you have mentioned sewing it a few times in the BPL cuben threads….that's enough to convince me to give it a look.

[Lawson Kline]

Well said Dan. I was thinking the exact same thing. In my personal experience I came up with a great way to bond cuben tie-outs but it takes way to long to do and could never be done on a production scale. I only built two tarps using the method and Doug Ide was the only person to be lucky enough to own one of the tarps. I have since switched to new method which is better overall. On a test rig it might not be the winner but when you average strength, durability and installation times it wins by leaps and bounds.

[Steven Evans]

Agreed, several factors will determine which method to use. Perhaps we will find that on a tarp/shelter one way is great for the ridgeline while another is good for tie and even another for pole reinforcements.

Hysol is a pain to work (IMO) with and takes a while to dry – good for repositioning, but bad if you want to bond various areas of your project in one sitting. On the other hand, contact cement (yep, I already gave it a try) is quite easy to work with but bonds on contact so there is no repositioning. Can we not meet halfway! :)

I came up with a great way to bond cuben tie-outs but it takes way to long to do and could never be done on a production scale.

I was a fan of the method where you had sewn grossgrain to a thick piece of cuben and then bonded that to the corner. I can't remember off hand if you reported how it worked in the field but visually, it looked great. Of course, having just bonded a tieout to my shelter, I can't imagine doing that on a production level.

[Jonathan Chin]

Whatever happened with the experiments?

I'm just getting into making my own gear and would very much like to see this data!

My current plan is to start making stuff sacks, and simple accessories using cuben and tape (likely 3M 9460). Anyone know of anything better overall on price, ease of use, strength, and durability?

[K C]

How about you test actual shelters, testing the tie out strength? Testing raw cuben means nothing

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