0.7osy coated nylon

Very intriguing. I'd like to also know if there's a source for the 7d nylon sans impermeable coating (ie. lightweight synthetic quilt shell material). A brief scan on the site and I don't see it. Back to this stuff: now squarely in the ballpark of the weight of CF at half the price, but is the listed 1500 HH enough…? Inquiring minds want to know!

I got what was probably the first 10yds of each color. I haven't worked with it at all yet. But it looks nice. It'd be nice to see some testing to back the HH claims. -Tim

1500HH is enough, especially if camped under some tree cover. However, will this stuff test up to that rating? Ryan

Rockywood's page says its both a Sil and PU coating. Be interesting to see it sans both coatings. And test results

I asked Rockywoods if they tested the fabric or are just providing the manufacturer's listed spec. Their response: Rene,The data did come from the manufacturer and seemed reasonable for a silicone coated one side / polyurethane coated the other side fabric. The mfg is from South Korea and so we also have a higher confidence in their data than say info from a Chinese mfg. We have not had it independently tested and have no plans to do so at the moment. For a large qty of fabric we would consider it though. -Bill

I will be testing this material for Rene when I return from my current adventure trip on Dec 1. This is assuming the sample is there when I return home.

Being a 7D nylon, I wonder how much this fabric will stretch/sag when it gets wet? The only shelter I know of using a 7D fabric is the Nemo Blaze, which uses 7D for its fly

I'm so tempted to buy some of this stuff. I just wish there were a few firsthand accounts from people who've used it. Could this be a poor man's cuben fiber? Of course at $12.99 per yd it's not all that cheap!

I just ordered a yard for testing. Sagging is certainly a concern, and I imagine it will be worse with a thinner, stretchier material. I suppose bungies at the guy-outs would address that, but there goes some of the weight savings.

Rene,

Thank you for sending me a sample of this material to test and your patience while I was on a trip for a month. My testing is now complete.

The mill’s HH specification, as reported by Rockywoods, is the same as my HH results after 5,400 wet-flex aging cycles. I have only tested one other product, Golite SL5, that accurately specified  the aged HH value versus the best case new HH value. The coating’s exfoliation tends to plateau at this point and it is ~equal to the international-minimum-rain-proof standard of 1,500mm HH.

5mm FOV

In addition to using a very-high quality sil/PU coating, this fabric has periodic increased thread density, rather than larger threads, to create a rip-stop effect. I don’t recall having seen this before; it is a very effective way to increase the tear resistance without reducing the HH do to having bigger threads the coating knife has to jump over.

My test results are as follows:

Small sample areal density: .8 oz/yd2

Thickness: .035mm

New HH: 2,812mm H2O

Aged HH: 1,547mm H2O

I’ll be making a single tarp as soon as I get my order in.  Not that I care about testing it in the rain as I trust the numbers but I will for the sake of showing how much sag there is. I can also give a good description of how it is to work with and sew.

Richard,

Thank you so much for the testing!  Great to hear the HH value is accurate, but disappointing about the weight.  I found the same value for the sample I sent you.  Still, 0.3ozy below RSBTR’s Membrane Silpoly’s measured weight is significant.

Aaron – looking forward to seeing how bad that sag is in use.

Good news. I’m also going to order a few yards of the dark grey. Just being 0.1 oz over the stated weight of 0.7 is acceptable to me, and it’s  half the price of cuben. Maybe this stuff really will turn out to be the poor man’s cuben fiber. I see the Rockywoods website says to use a 70/10 needle with this material.

We are so blessed to have MIT level people like Richard here at BPL who dispense their knowledge for free.

Rene, Rockywoods and Richard,

Thanks for the collective work on testing and making us aware of this product.  Looks very promising.

I was ordering some fleece from Rockywoods and decided to get a couple yards of this material. It’s an impressive fabric. Despite its thinness, the fabric actually seems quite strong. It does not tear easily IMO. I only have enough to make some stuff sacks, but I’ll be interested to hear how it works in tarp form

John, do you feel like it is tarp material, or better suited for rain gear?

I think it’s strong enough for a tarp material (assuming it’s sewn well and all tie-outs are properly reinforced), I just don’t know how much it would sag

I made a fully enclosed tarptent style shelter out of .7oz argon silnylon listed at 1300 HH.  I was happy with the finished weight at 21oz complete, It wasn’t quite enough HH. During a Grand Canyon thunder storm, I was under the trees along the river providing minimal coverage and got slight misting. Back to the drawing boards.

-Dale

Dale, if I remember correctly, Richard tested the argon sil awhile back and it performed less well than this fabric from Rockywoods, coming in at under 1000 HH in the stress test. I don’t remember the exact details, but I wouldn’t give up hope just yet.

Argon Silnylon weighed about 1.1 oz/yd2. Richard Nisley tested it here:

http://backpackinglight.com/forums/topic/89500/

I just did some basic strength tests.

I cut two 5″ wide strips, one on the warp, one on the weft.  Then I tied each in a loop over a pull up bar, stood on a scale and weighted each until failure.

The warp sample tested at 13 lb/in and the weft sample at 19 lb/in. Both samples failed at the knot, so my figures are probably somewhat low. Note that RockyWoods lists the manufacturer’s ratings at 1.2 and 2.5 lb/in, respectively.  That’s a pretty big discrepancy, but could be misplaced decimals.

Averaging the 2 strengths to 16 lb/in, a circular corner re-enforcement patch with a 4″ radius could transfer 100 lbs. to the guy line. (Load = seam length x fabric strength) Crude as my method was, this feels like a workable ball park.

Looking forward to hearing how the builds go.

So, I’m a little confused by Dale’s post. Dale, did you make your fully enclosed shelter out of Argon from Dutchware or the new nylon from Rockywoods?

I’m really want this nylon to be great. I ordered a sample from Rockywoods and so far I like it, but I’m still concerned about the waterproofness. I saw someone mention once doing a wet-paper-towel-and-kneel-on-it test, and I tried that. (It’s highly unscientific, I’m sure). This involves taking a wet paper towel, placing the nylon on top of it, and kneeling on the whole thing to see how wet your knee gets. I know this isn’t the best test, but I’ll share my results.

When testing the brand new Rockywoods fabric, my knee stayed completely dry. However, when I rubbed it with my thumb vigorously and tried again, my knee got very wet. To me, this would indicate that it has great waterproofness, but the coating may not be super durable.

For reference, I did the same test with brand new Argon silnylon from Dutchware (the stuff that is no longer available), and the results were identical.

Also for reference, I did the same test with silnylon from Ray Jardine. Interestingly, the nylon was from a tarp that has seen extensive use and it passed the knee test completely. I rubbed and scratched the nylon and it still passed the knee test again.

The results from Richard are encouraging, but I suspect that the Rockywoods fabric is a nylon that needs to be treated with some care, for both coating and “lightweightness” reasons. I’m tempted to make a shelter from it, but unfortunately, where I live, we’ll be locked in winter until May, so I won’t have a chance to try it out any time soon anyway.

Dales’s Argon Silnylon Post is discussing a fabric different from what this thread is about (Rockywoods 7 d silnylon).

I made multiple test result posts to the Dutchware Argon Silnylon thread at http://backpackinglight.com/forums/topic/89500/#763290:

Areal density: 1.11 oz/yd2

Virgin HH: 702.99

Just made a 4.4 ounce tarp out of the 7d.

Put all the specs on a different thread.