Netting construction questions for MYOG tent

[d k]

I am in the process of making a silnylon Franken-tent combining features of the SMD Haven and the Zpacks Duplex. The outer tarp portion is now complete except for bottom hem and seam finishing. The bug netting portion will be floorless (possibly a clipped in bathtub floor), and hopefully zipless (I can still enjoy zipless tents at least, at my age).

So I'm considering

1) just having the netting hang down on each door side somewhat loosely so that we can lift it up to enter/exit.

2) alternatively, to have two netting panels hanging down on each door side, overlapping each other by 12" to 18", somewhat like what it seems Roger Caffin has done with some of his tunnel tent entries, so that we can part it to enter/exit.

Has anyone else tried anything like either of these methods on their MYOG projects, and how did it turn out?

I will probably do this at least initially with nylon tulle attached to seam allowances, easily ripped out and replaced without harming the tent exterior. I'm planning on adding a horizontal strip of silnylon to the ends of the tent several inches above the end piece hems to stitch a shorter swath of netting to, where it will hang down from there and tuck into the bathtub floor.

Thanks in advance –
dk

[Roger Caffin]

> having the netting hang down on each door side somewhat loosely so that we can lift
> it up to enter/exit.
I had thought about that, but never actually done it. I went for the overlap instead, with a couple of press-studs to connect to the top of the bathtub floor – which was sewn-in via the inner sides or inner netting sides. I can also tie the doors open with some little tie-tapes at the sides.

The overlap needs to be generous if you want to keep mossies out.

I used nylon tulle with some hesitation at first. 15 years later, the same tulle is still there. It seems to have been knitted with a quite heavy-gauge thread or filament. OK, I treat it with a little care, but to me that seems acceptable. A strip of silnylon along the bottom seems a smart idea.

I definitiely am a fan of bathtub floors. You can keep those flat groundsheets – for dry weather. I have floated in my bathtub… >1" of water all around the floor!

Cheers

[d k]

OK, how many cm in "generous"? :) Yes, I *definitely* want to keep mossies out, otherwise no point to the netting!

I hadn't thought about it, but now that you talk about the tie-outs, I realize that with the single panel as opposed to the 2 flaps, it would be more difficult to tie the netting out of the way (during non-mosquito times) – but still not impossible, I suppose. I thought about weighting down the bottom (pockets for stuff?) rather than putting snaps in, or perhaps even magnets…but not sure about that yet.

Thanks for the ideas!

[Roger Caffin]

Hi Debbie

I used 100 mm at the top and 200 mm at the bottom. It was 'adequate'. A little more at the bottom – 250 mm maybe, might have been better.

Magnets – an attractive idea (awful pun), but they may interfere with your compass.
Pockets – yeah, hadn't thought of that. Possible.

Cheers

[d k]

Well, I've decided on first pass to just have a solid panel hang down. Since the side door openings are so wide, I think that makes it easier to lift than in a narrow end door. And it makes construction even easier.

So far with side panels pinned in, the tent weighs around 22 oz. (with no floor). It feels enormous inside. More to follow after I finish it and take it out later this week…

[Roger Caffin]

Hi Debbie

We won't believe you until we see photos! :-)

Cheers

[d k]

OK, Roger, here goes…

I finished the netting about 90 minutes before setting out from home on my trip last week – or as Mom would have said, it was "sewn with a hot needle" (i.e., somewhat sloppily).

As I previously said, the tent is made of silnylon (from the $1 bin at Walmart several years ago) and design is sort of a love child of the Zpack Duplex and Six Moon Designs Haven. I am deeply indebted to both Joe and Ron for providing the inspiration for my variation on their excellent shelters (and also to Henry Shires for the floorless design that our old Cloudburst has). Thanks also to Manfred Kopisch for allowing me to look at his Duplex and Haven closely to get details, and for recommending certain features of one or the other that have worked well for him.

I downloaded SketchUp to design the tent; that was a learning experience in itself, never having used any software like that. It helped me at least get close to the right dimensions for the door and vent pieces, though if you look closely you can tell it's not close to perfect. Perhaps one day I will do this again with a little more precision.

The tent has doors in the style of the Duplex, though with a vent above them like the Haven. The high point is not located at the middle but more towards the head end, and poles fit into a pocket in a triangle at each peak. I used nylon tulle for the side and end panels, suspended from the seams along the door openings and from a strip of silnylon sewn across each end about 7" from the bottom. Somehow I ended up with a much taller tent than I'd intended (pitched with trekking poles at 135cm) but it is nice to have all the headroom that creates. I was able to kneel under the peak without my head hitting the top. It is also wider than either of its "parents" – about 50". There is a huge amount of room – I think 4 people could probably sit up inside. Total weight is under 23 ounces.

I wasn't sure about my idea for loosely hanging netting instead of an overlap, or a zippered door, but it worked well on this trip. Most of my motivation for the zipperless design was to make things easier (for him) and quieter (for me) with regards to nighttime pee trips.

Luckily there was no precipitation on the trip, as I had not had time to seal the seams (we brought a Squall 2 in case of emergency). It seemed to hold up well with the amount of wind we experienced, despite its height and imperfect tautness when pitched, but I suspect it might be pretty flappy with a really strong wind. I enjoyed the ventilation and the views leaving a flap open on either side.

The drawback of the tulle panels is that they are so light that they're easily deflected by much wind, but despite a very heavy mosquito presence, they did not seem to find their way under the netting. We placed gear along the sides in places, and that seemed to keep it in place well enough when we were inside. Perhaps one day I will use some real nanoseeum netting, but for now the tulle seems to be sufficient, very breathable, and good for viewing through.

I used a Tyvek bathtub floor for this trip; I'd like to use something lighter eventually, but given the rocky area we had to pitch on one night (that poked through the Tyvek in one spot) I'm not sorry we brought it this week.

[BlackHatGuy]

Wow, Debbie, this looks great! I continue to be amazed by the folks here on BPL and the stuff they create. Maybe when I retire I can learn how to sew!

Nicely done.

[Cameron M]

This is pretty much the approach I took as well, except I made the netting large enough to be pushed out to accommodate a triangular vestibule; it is not a flat plane. That extra bit of net also allowed the net to be pulled up and out of the way when conditions warrant. http://www.backpackinglight.com/cgi-bin/backpackinglight/forums/thread_display.html?forum_thread_id=103152&skip_to_post=884362#884362

[d k]

That is a great idea, Cameron, especially for a small shelter like the Deschutes. I am thinking of making a solo shaped tarp like Aaron's 4 yard shelter next, and I think I may add netting like yours to the sides and beak.

[Roger Caffin]

Hi Debbie

Lovely mountains.
Oh – sorry, I am meant to be looking at the tent … :-)

> silnylon (from the $1 bin at Walmart several years ago)
Disgraceful. Here's me paying 10x more than that … (You can't buy silnylon anywhere in Oz.)

Seam-sealing: worth doing of course, but I suspect it would not have leaked very much as is.

Tent pole pockets: neat.

Guys in middle of roof panels: very necessary.

> I downloaded SketchUp to design the tent; that was a learning experience in itself
I think you did extremely well to get it usable in that time!!!

> with a vent above them like the Haven.
For cold weather you might want the vents to be slightly bigger, to help get rid of the condensation, but at least your vents are in the RIGHT place – at the top.

> Total weight is under 23 ounces.
Does that include the Tyvec groundsheet? Good weight either way.

> loosely hanging netting instead of an overlap,
Yeah, seems OK. With the idea of being able to stretch the netting out to the door, that seems rather neat. Do you have some tie tapes along the seam to keep the netting out of the way when you need?

> The drawback of the tulle panels is that they are so light that they're easily
> deflected by much wind,
For a tent this light, sticking stuff on the bottom edge is a good compromise. With an attached groundsheet you can use a couple of plastic snaps in the middle, but NA here.
Frankly, I don't see much need to swap the tulle out for no-see-um for a tent this light. I still use tulle on my summer tent.

Now you have to use it to death!

Cheers

[d k]

Roger –

Well, I have a feeling that the bargain silnylon is worth about what I paid for it; it feels awfully flimsy in comparison to things I have bought made of presumably better grades of silnylon. But it presumably will hold up for a while, and that was a good price for "practice" material.

I might have gotten rain leakage in a few places, on seams that I had to rip out and do over, but at least it would have been at the perimeter and not directly overhead.

The groundsheet is not included in the weight; it weighed about 10 ounces on its own! Yeesh. I may try re-coating a piece of silnylon to come up with a bathtub that is lighter. But since I did end up with a gash in the tyvek, I'm glad I was using it.

I can use the tie-backs on the door panels to tie up the netting on the sides (I sewed in loops for that), and I could also add something by the vent to tie it in the center – but that was not a priority on this trip since I knew the bugs were hellacious where we were going.

Another couple of things to maybe add: net pockets along the sides for glasses, etc., at night, also loops at the peaks inside the netting, to tie a string across for hanging stuff (wet socks, photon light "lantern".

I will be interested to see how it performs in other conditions (rain, wind, condensation). Temp range on this trip was low 70s F down to a low of 46 F at night, so relatively balmy.

[Justin T]

Hey Debbie,

Great looking tent, glad I stumbled upon this! I picked up 10 yards of 2nds silpoly and was going to make a pyramid shelter a la Jerry Adams but I think I would prefer something like this. Do you have any plans you would be willing to share, especially on dimensions for vestibule panels? Thanks!

justin

[d k]

Thanks, Justin.  Unfortunately, mostly no on the plans; I could give you a few rough measurements, but they are mostly taken from the website’s stated dimensions of the two shelters I wanted to imitate, and I wouldn’t necessarily recommend making the tent exactly with the dimensions I did.  What I did was make a model in Google Sketch-Up with those length, width, height dimensions, then try to cut pieces roughly corresponding to the dimensions and angles on the model.  It mostly worked but I did have to do some tweaking, and I’m not sure exactly where or how much.

I would suggest at the very least to not bother with the asymmetrical peak that I used, modeled after the SMD Haven; it didn’t seem worth all that extra trouble for me (if you’re very tall, it might be a help however as it might give you less chance of hitting your head on the short, steeper side of the peak as you sit up, as compared to having two equal sides with equal steepness).   Also, if you don’t include a vent, that would also make design and construction easier, although adding the vent wasn’t as difficult in sketch-up as I thought it might be; I just drew the top of the vestibule panels as a straight line in the same plane as the edges of the “roof” piece.

Sketch-Up is a lot of fun to learn!

[Justin T]

@dkramalc

Thanks for the tips! Unfortunately, I’ve already tried downloading sketchup already over the last few weeks and my Mac is just old enough that none of the versions they have on the site will work on my computer, that’s why I’ve been digging around looking for anyone with measurements of sides or angles and trekking pole insertion ideas to run with off the cuff sans Sketchup.

[Doug Coe]

Debbie—If you see this…I remember your showing me this tent at the last GGG. I like the cool details!

So, how’s the hanging netting worked out as a mosquito defender? I’m gathering ideas for a myog shelter and this approach might work very welll with what I have in mind.

[d k]

It has worked out very well for me!  I made it of tulle, as you might recall, and that’s held up pretty well with a little care.  It would be pretty easy to replace, as I left dangling seam allowances after doing a mock felled seam, and attached it to those with a zig-zag stitch.  If you do it, just leave a lot of extra fabric in the horizontal as well as vertical directions, so that it can be lifted without stressing the fabric.  The advantage of the tulle is that it’s really breathable.

[Doug Coe]

Debbie—That’s good to know. I haven’t decided which way I’ll go, but it’s good to have options.

I’m not familiar with what tulle is. Guess I’ll be visiting a fabric shop to see.

[d k]

It’s the stuff of which tutus are made – and Peter’s Headnets.  Does not keep out noseeums and is more flimsy than traditional netting fabric, but is very light, cheap, and breathable.  Also easier to see through.  I’d never put a zipper in it, but for a zipless door it is okay.

[Doug Coe]

Debbie—Cool. Thanks. I do have Peter’s headnet.

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