Another MYOG Tent

[Ben Wortman]

Almost finished up with my latest MYOG tent. Set it up tonight and took a few pics. It is basically a narrow but taller version of the Lunar duo for a single person tent. One other big difference is that designed it so that the poles are on the inside. I did this thinking that the poles would sort of keep the floor from sliding around. This would avoid any stress on the no-seeum connection between the floor and canopy. After a little fiddling with it, I'm not sure that this was a good idea. While it does keep the floor in place very well, it also limits the tents ability to be raised up high in fair weather or for ventilation.

For the pole pockets, I used 1/4" grommets to secure the hiking pole tips on the inside. I would highly recommend this setup. It was my first time doing this, and it was relatively easy to secure the grommets to a piece of webbing and sew the webbing to the canopy.

I sewed it complete without any caterary cuts at the seams, and it ended up all limp and floppy when I set it up. I had to take it apart and add cat cuts to the 4 corner seams and this solved the floppyness. It now sets up rather taught in my uneven backyard.

Any comments or questions on the construction are more than welcome.

Thanks for looking.

[Daryl and Daryl]

I like it.

Thanks for posting.

Is there a vestibule on the back side too?

[Ben Wortman]

Yes it does. It has 2 doors and 2 vestibules of equal size.

Ben

[Jordo _99]

This looks great!

I'm actually near Omaha and made my own, double-walled version of the LunarDuo (slightly larger).

I'm not sure if you're looking to change anything but from your comments you didn't seem sure about your pole/floor setup so I thought I'd offer what I did for mine:

I have some shockcord from the corners of my floor that I can attach to the stakes to keep the floor spread out. I also ended up adding some webbing and a grommet to the outside of my bathtub floor that helps to hold the floor and poles in place as well. (the "pole grommet" looks similar to this: https://lakelandgear.com/images/poleanchoringsystem.jpg)

I'm curious what the size/weight of your tent ended up being. Mine is ~40oz and I felt great about it at first but I'm thinking I could have hit 2lbs with a single walled version.

Again, great tent Ben!

[Jesse Koester]

We should get a MYOG group together here! Awesome tent!

[Ben Wortman]

Jordo
That looks like a good idea for keeping the floor taught. I will have to play around with it over the weekend. On a bright note, it did survive the storms that rolled through last night with no problems. It just leaked a little through the stitch holes in the fly where the netting is attached. Once I get that seam sealed, it should be good to go. It is about 30" wide and 9' long. It weighs about 2.5 lbs without stakes, but that is with some sil that has some extra coating on it thus making it heavier than normal.

[Jordo _99]

Jesse,

I'd definitely be up for an Omaha MYOG group. It would be a great way to share ideas, show off our hard work and trade extra/spare materials.

[Rob Daly]

Looks good Ben. A popular and intelligent design. And it looks like the cat cuts really helped the pitch. So, is this a 'hybrid' double wall tent, with just the silnylon for the 'roof' area?

It will be interesting to see if you can get the floor more taught with the addition of some cord at the base of the bathtub. Maybe you can tie off that bathtub area to the bottom of the fly instead of having to stake it out.

[Ben Wortman]

Rob
It is a hybrid with just the ceiling being silnylon. The best idea I think is to sew loops on the floor in the corners and run shock cord to the stakes for the fly to keep the floor taught. The more I play around with it the more I am tempted to just take off the floor and convert it to a single wall floorless tent. It would be sort of like a Shangri La 2 but you would sleep 90 degrees right down the middle of both poles. I have always wanted to make one like that for single person use.

Or it might end up on gearswap so I would be forced to build another one.

Anyone want to finish this one up?

Ben

[Ben Wortman]

After messing with the tent off and on today, I think that the main problem with my tent and the floor issue is that the poles are inside the netting portion. This prevents the tent from being raised up and down. Once I put the poles on the outside of the netting, I was able to raise up the tent to the designed height. The floor then hangs at the proper height. I think for now I will just let the floor hang to simplify things. Once my gear and pad are in it, the floor will stay in place well enough.

[Sean H]

Looks like the tent came out great. I can really tell the difference in the latest photo now that the poles are on the outside. Everything is stretching just the way it wants, nice and taught even with a door open. Also like the separate panels at head/foot ends allowing you to run the netting straight down to the floor. I was lazy with mine and just dealt with running the net from the ends, inwards towards the floor.

[Franco Darioli]

Counterintuitively, I would suggest not to put too much tension (if any) on the floor.
The reason is that the more tension you have on the floor fabric, the easier it is to puncture.
I used the illustration of the balloon and dart stand at the country fair.
The reason why those balloons don't burst (easily) when hit by a dart is because they are not fully inflated.

[Thomas Gauperaa]

@franco love that illustration :D

[Danny Gelston]

Hi Ben
Can you explain where exactly you required the cat cuts??

Is it along the bottom hem of the vestibule sides and/or down the 4 corners?

Thanks for any help.

[Ben Wortman]

The only seams that I cat cut were the ones running from the 2 peaks down to the 4 corners of the tent.

Ben

[Danny Gelston]

Thanks Ben Looks great by the way :)

[Cheryl Mitchell]

Looks great. Do you have any patterns or diagrams?

[Ben Wortman]

I have a google sketchup file I used for a pattern I can send out if anyone is interested. PM me your email address and i will send you the file,

Ben

[Jeffrey Wong]

…nice! I like!

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