Q: Cost of Cuben

There's not much of a markup by Joe at Zpacks or at QuestOutfitters. Here are the prices for cuben that I got from Cubic Tech this summer. Note that it's 10% more than this for colored cuben and if you order from Cubic Tech you have to pay a $10-$12 handling fee.

CT2K.08 is the 0.74oz stuff which I believe Joe refers to as 0.6oz (per yard??). As you can see it's $21.33 here but if you add 10% more for color and $1/yd for the handling fee then you're over $24…or $2 less than Joe but Joe lets you buy any amount you want.

Thank you.

Joe mentioned that some Cuben production runs of what he had been calling .6 weight came in at a higher weight but he hadn't changed his name/number for that fabric every time he received part of a new batch. The film was a little thicker which pushed the weight higher.

The whole 0.6oz weight of cuben is a weird situation. According to Cubic tech you've got CT2K.08 at 0.74oz/yd2 and then the next lightest fabric is CT1K.08 at 0.51oz/yd. There really isn't a weight of cuben that weighs 0.6oz/yd or even really close to it. It seems that a few years back people started using CT2K.08 and they called it 0.6oz incorrectly. Either that or they were using CT1K.08 (0.51oz/yd) which weighs 0.61oz/meter2 and getting the units mixed up. Regardless, a 0.6oz weight of cuben doesn't exist and if I was buying cuben that was claimed at 0.6oz I would be careful to find out if it's CT2K.08 or CT1K.08 because CT2K.08 has double the spectra and it's a lot stronger. The 'CT' in the name refers to 'Cubic Tech'. The '2K' is the amount of spectra and the '.08' refers to the thickness of the mylar membranes on either side. If there's a 'HB' in the name then it's 'high bias' cuben which has spectra stands at 0, +45, 90, and -45 degree, instead of just at 0 and 90 like regular cuben. No one uses high bias cuben though…presumably because it's even more insanely expensive than regular cuben.

Once you understand how the naming works, you can choose cuben to suit your needs. More spectra is going to be stronger, whereas thicker mylar membranes are going to be more abrasion resistant (ie. good for groundsheets). 1.5oz cuben is CT5K.18. If you just wanted cuben that strong but didn't need the abrasion resistance then you could use CT5K.08. If you want the abrasion resistance then you could using cuben with the .18 mylar but less spectra like the new 1.2oz cuben which is probably something like CT3K.18 but that's a guess.

I ordered 9m of .33 last month and the total cost with handling($15) and shipping($15) was $198

the 10yd (9m=9.8yds) from quest would have run 271.50 before shipping. More a bump than i need. for the $170 price before shipping you get 9.8yds from Cubic tech or 6.25yds from quest.

-Tim

Thanks for the info, Dan. I think this would be a great addition to the wiki page. I've wondered about the different types of Cuben, and this really clears it up. With an easy reference (complete with the chart) then I think people might get used to referring to the materials by their proper name (e. g. "CT2K.08") as opposed to a nickname (0.6 Cuben) even if the proper name is a mouthful.

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