Guess that Walmart fabric!

Oh, yeah, I forgot…

I also made a 'bag' with a square and filled it with water. Could not squeeze any water through.

Then I took a knife and agressively scraped a section to see if it took off any coating. What came off looked more like fabric scraping than a coating. Did the water bag test again and small amounts of moisture wept through under pressure.

My guess is PU coated ripstop nylon.

hahah this is hilarious….nothing passes the "kirby" test.
I'm thinking what Chris is thinking. Also, that's ACU no? Marpat is usually woodland or desert…ACU is gray. Hilarious nonetheless !

Matt,

My guess is PVC coated ripstop nylon. ;-)

In the above picture you can see what I made out of mine as a first attempt at sewing my own tarp.

Walmart seemed to have two varieties of this same pattern of fabric. One had a very obvious opaque coating and the other seemed quite thin and hard to distinguish by eye. I bought some of the first type. It tended to leave a white powdery residue on my sewing machine. This is what leads me to believe it is PVC coated.

Party On ! 2010

Newton

Matt,
Did you weigh it?
sam

Sam, I haven't had a chance yet.

John, That looks familiar. I'm going to sew a sample today and see if I get the same residue.

Konrad – I believe you're right about ACU. And Kirby is a gear eating machine. :)

Thanks all for the help!

So…you are the reason I get followed around, and closely monitored by the fabric store staff..

At least two of the Walmarts near where I live have phased out their fabric sections in the last couple of years. They now only have a tiny arts and crafts section of mostly beads scrapbooking stuff. Shame.

not sure about fabric but thought you might get a kick out of this

Plastic Materials ID Chart might help.

One of the standard ways of identifying plastics is a burn test; flame colour and smell. Of course, in this case, things are complicated by the fact that we have two materials, but PVC should be identifiable (it’s horrible stuff when it burns).

Needless to say, don’t burn the stuff in your house, and don’t stick your nose over the flame and take a huge lungful of fumes; lots of horrible chemicals in the smoke. Remember your chemistry lessons, and gently waft a little smoke towards you, and take the smallest of sniffs…

Take Bill Clinton’s advice, and don’t inhale…

ps. my guess is that it’s PU coated nylon.

pps. I get funny looks for ‘kissing’ clothes when doing a blow test…