Cuben fiber failure? Any updates since 2008?

[James Klein]

David Olson's .51cf vs 1.3oz silnylon test:
http://blog.owareusa.com/2012/01/16/cuben-fiber-and-silnylon-pull-test/

Here is one by Joe Valesco from zpacks:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8gfcuCh7h04&feature=channel

Good field use report by Tony (also read the comments):
http://tonysbushwalking.wordpress.com/2011/01/27/zpacks-hexamid-tent-field-review/

[James Klein]

Franco, its not always so simple.

Nylon expands when wet AND it losses elasticity when wet…I have seen (somewhere) that nylon will stretch twice as much for the same load with ~2% water absorption (by weight).

The amount of water weight it picks up is a function of environmental conditions (humidity, temp,) and time the in those conditions.

So maybe someone could hike in the rain all day and have an already saturated tarp…set it up taught and not have to worry much about retensioning.
I could also imagine someone hiking in dry conditions, setting up a tarp just as taught. Then waking up to a flapping tent b/c humidity increases through the night (increasing moisture content) so then they retention….then later a storm blows in and further saturates the tarp so they have to get and retention again….

Regardless, I still think it is very manageable, just not something to blow off as inconsequential.

I would just like to come forward and say that if I have offended anybody by my comments within this thread, that I extend my apologies to you. BPL is not a place to get all huffy-and-puffy with other hikers and if I have done that in any way to anybody out there, well, bad on me!

Obviously this issue has been one of those "trash talk" issues at BPL for many years and most of us should just know better by now to stay away from such questions/posts – bad on me for jumping in on this one.

Kevin (the OP) seems like a nice guy. Obviously his whole hyperbole (good word btw, whoever used that first) about cuben fiber == hypothermia was/is rather commical (I do not mean that in a rude way, its just funny, for as I said above thermoregulation is not based on one singular aspect of your gear.)

I will just leave this post with the very comment I made when I got involved in this. If by now, after probably 100,000+ miles of cuben fiber being used by hikers around the world, it had "problems" (and I will let each of you decide what that word can be described as) than hikers simply would not be using it, and the cottage companies out there would not continue to be making gear out of it as it would cost them more in the long run to make, sell, and be forced to take it back because of failures.

–Abela

[drowning in spam]

Why don't we see threads like this for silnylon? Silnylon was not designed to be waterproof, and testing shows that it is in fact not waterproof. Silnylon stretches when it's most inconvenient. It's very difficult to repair. It absorbs water.

It does have a few qualities. It's cheaper. It hides sloppy design and manufacturing. It's opaque.

Where is the data and official results for silnylon?

[Luke Schmidt]

Thanks for the post John. In hindsight I might have worded a few things more carefully too so if anyone feels like I stepped on their toes I apologize.

For the record I haven't been completely satisfied with 1.1 oz nylon either. I recall a very long thread about silnylon and its lack of complete waterproofness and the fact that its waterproofness degrades over time.

[Jacob Blumenfeld]

First of all, OP I think it is unfair to automatically associate cuben fiber material with getting hypothermia. I am sure there have been reports of silnylon failures.

I have personally experienced some pretty good storms using a cuben fiber Zpacks hexamid plus(0.51oz). I have also used the shelter during the seasonal California Santa Ana winds with gusts up to 40+ mph with no issues. I am using the older Zpacks model that has sewn sections, the newer version is all taped and bonded, and should be stronger.

Here's a link to a video that I took earlier this month while on the JMT. Encountered lots of thunderstorms and some large hail. Hailstones grape to quarter in size pelted the shelter; the material and seams held up. Wish I could give you the lbs/sq inch of force that the hailstones hit at, but I can tell you that it hurt to get hit and could of potentially left us with some welts had we not been in the shelter. Could have really damaged a persons eye had they been hit directly in the eye. I had to re-stake the tent afterwards because the force of the hail hitting the shelter partially pulled up some stakes and shifted others. Half of the stakes had 2-10lb rocks on them in addition to being staked in the ground.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LUgaFCvF2KM

In the video, the person who retreated into our shelter due to tarp failure had an MSR silnylon tarp. Was an error in pitch though, no rips or seam failures.

Was a little scary especially since I was concerned that the ultra thin cuben might fail and leave us exposed to the elements. It didn't though. Pretty awesome. If being able to take that kind of a beating doesn't deem a shelter as 3-season bombproof I don't know what does.

Cuben is definitely more susceptible to abrasion than silnylon…that has been my experience in the field. This doesn't matter for shelters though.

Also, one other thing I like about cuben > silnylon is how easy it is to dry after a wet night of rain or condensation. Just shake it out or lay in the sun for just a few minutes. The material itself absorbs little to no moisture unlike silnylon.

[Daryl and Daryl]

Great video!

I felt like I was there. Exciting and scary.

[David Ure]

"Why don't we see threads like this for silnylon? Silnylon was not designed to be waterproof, and testing shows that it is in fact not waterproof. Silnylon stretches when it's most inconvenient. It's very difficult to repair. It absorbs water."

There several hundred pages here at BPL on silnylon. Some available is highly waterproof and in fact, moreso than some cuben samples. Look up Richard Nisely tests for an eye opening discussion. Some cuben had a HH of well under 1000 mm. Some was well over 3000 mm. The same with silnylon samples.

Silnylon will not absorb appreciable water. It may have water cling to it, but not absorb.

It is incredibly easy to repair with seam grip, even in the field.

Stretching when it is inconvenient? Please expand (no pun intended).

For the love of God, quit generalizing.

[Sam Farrington]

Kevin,
To answer your question – if that is OK given the level of passion on this issue – and if you are still following this thread that you started – as an avid follower of the gear and myog forums, I've really seen few if any more recent reports of failure, and lots of reports of Cuben weathering lousy conditions. Matt Edwards' reports impressed me the most, given the length of his treks. Eb Eberhart doesn't post on this site; but he has been using his own Cuben version of the Nomad design for years of long distance trekking since before the cottage manufacturers began making them. However, on May 13th, Brendan Swihart reported on myog that his 1.5 oz. cuben pack quickly developed a couple holes from light abrasion. (That caught my eye, because I am planning to use the 1.26 oz Cuben for a tent floor. The alternative is the Thru-Hiker silnylon, which is kind of on the slippery side for a floor, compared to other less water resistant silnylons.) But no reports of failures of Cuben tarp or tent canopies. The last one I can remember involved a goat (mountain goat?) landing its hoof on a Cuben canopy wall with a BANG!, and even something like that could be patched more easily than silnylon to last until better repairs could be made. So the evidence suggests that you would be fine with something from one of the companies that has gained experience using the material and a good reputation evidenced by the company reviews on this and other sites.
The whole business of the stitch holes is very worth noting; however, a number of the small companies, like Lightheart Gear, are taping sewn Cuben seams over the stitches to address this. Seam construction and bonding are big issues for myogers, as they should be; but if you are going to buy something already manufactured, you might have little interest in getting into all the minutiae that involves.
Hope this is at least somewhat responsive to your OP, which seemed reasonable enough. Agree with family guy's comments 100%.

[drowning in spam]

Now hundreds of pages on BPL on silnylon are facts and data, but you still ignore the same thing regarding cuben. Yeah, now we clearly see your agenda.

There are countless reports of misting with silnylon fly's misting and silnylon floors wetting through. Not so much with cuben.

Does seam grip dry incredibly fast? No. It is not an incredibly easy repair. It is a rather inconvenient repair, and maybe impossible repair, when there's weather.

Stretching is well documented. It's a fact found in many technical publications regarding silnylon.

Fact is, silnylon was never meant to be used as a tent fly, which is why it has these undesirable characteristics. Good silnylon is the worst for fly's. Bad foreign silnylon is better because of poor quality.

[David Ure]

Yup. My agenda is to discredit cuben users, which ironically, would include myself. My experience is that 0.74 Cuben is not particularly abrasion resistant but my experience is limited.

I simply like specificity of data that backs up claims, rather than rely on marketing. Having said that, we are now getting some direct, very useful perspective (see Samuel above).

I would still like to know who those Triple Crowners are.

Regarding sil nylon, as stated before, it will stretch only to a point and then no more. In fact, this makes it far more desirable in windy and snowy conditions.

[David Olsen]

Some more perspective on fabrics.

The North Face VE24 etc used a 1.9 oz urethane coated nylon for it's fly. Tear strength about 10 lbs/square inch. Some of their flys are a lighter 1.5 oz urethane coated nylon. They have all proven durable on all types of expeditions.

Silnylon 1.1 oz has a tear strength of 15 lbs/square inch.

Cuben Fiber has a tear strength even higher than any of these in .74 oz and heavier.

Any of these materials work well for tarps.

I still haven't seen examples of field fabric failures on tarps with reasonable construction methods (IE avoiding putting all the force of the elements on a single small stitch line) on any of these fabrics. Going on 27 years now. What I do see are pole failures, burn holes, sun rot, zippers wearing out, dogs charging through mosquito net…

[Phillip Damiano]

Hi, Today I received a Custom Made Cuben Fiber shelter, similar to a Duo.

20 to 25 knot winds today (apx 44kph) Setup for the first time and noticed this failure mentioned here on the main Guy Points for the pegs, My shelter is sewn on those guy points and not taped. What's the best way to repair this? Can I use some tape to hold it together?

For now, I have placed Cloth Duck Tape over the failure points.

[Steven McAllister]

Hey Phillip,

I believe you are not supposed to sew cuben the same way you would other materials. The strength is much better with tape or a combination of tape and sewing.

[Buck Nelson]

I didn't realize this topic was so controversial!

First of all in a case like this "Absence of evidence IS evidence of absence." Cuben shelters have been tested extensively and have performed well, which is evidence that they have not been failing.

This summer I used a Hexamid for months on the Desert Trail, and then for weeks down the Yellowstone River. Those trips included some hard rains and plenty of wind. The Cuben held up nicely.

What Cuben is not great at is abrasion. I used some Cuben stuff sacks and although they held up sufficiently to organize my gear, they developed holes fairly quickly. (Poor mini dri-bags.) The difference is, of course, I'd set up my shelter where it was not subject to abrasion. And the shelter has to be put together by someone who knows how to work with Cuben (see How do I repair this Cuben Fiber Shelter?)

Designed and sewn and used properly, there is good reason to trust Cuben shelters.

[Miner]

I have been using the same MLD Grace Solo CF tarp since early 2008 as my only shelter I take backpacking. I took it on my '09 PCT thru-hike and just used it for 2 months on the AT (which is why I didn't orignally see this thread since I was hiking).

The only wear its experienced is the formation of a handful of pinholes near the open end that has not effected the waterproofness of the shelter, some have been there since 2009 and I have had no issues with them enlarging or causing any tearing when pitched tight, even in strong winds. I'm not really sure what caused those tiny pinholes. My own theory is that its related to abrasion of stuffing it into a stuff sack along with a silnylon stake bag and constantly shoving said stuff stack into very tight places within my backpack hundreds of times since they are on the part that is always the outside part of the tarp when its folded and touches the stuff sack (I always fold it the same way).

However, I still can't justify replacing it no matter how much I lust after some of the newer UL tarp shelters since it continues to work. I've been in really strong winds with this tarp with no issues. Ron even has a quote of mine on his website about this tarp in wind that I still agree with. I would think that I would have seen any major CF durability issues by now if there was a real problem with the fabric; at least on equipement that was properly made.

Edit: I just saw the "Is cuben fiber flammable" thread. Since those handful of tiny holes are only on the very end of the tarp where the wider opening is, which is where I often cook under it, I wonder if they might have been caused by the heat of my stove. I only cook under it when its raining which usually means a lower pitch. Hmmm. Who knows. In any case, I still think CF is a good material for shelters. Though its been out long enough, surely its time for the next greatest and lighter material to come along by now.

[Sam Farrington]

David,
Perhaps should have noted that Eb Eberhart is a triple crowner. In fact, that may be among the least of his trekking accomplishments. His trail name is Nimblewill Nomad, I believe, and for a number of years he used a Cuben fiber Nomad tent (Wanderlust design) made by a craftsman in Berlin, Germany. Don't know what he is using now – no longer see it on his website. Being around the same age as I am, he is an inspiration to me.

Nimblewill Nomad just finished up the Ice Age Trail and the New England Trail this year. He did use his custom made cuben fiber shelter made by Christian Eckhardt. You can see a photograph of it here. I believe that Nomad acquired it back in 2008 – which would mean he has used it on the PCT, the North Country National Scenic Trail, the Arizona Trail, the Pacific Northwest Trail, the Ozark Trail, the Ice Age, and others. I will let somebody else try to figure out the total mileage. The shelter that he uses is a double wall (two piece) diamond shaped tarp. It would be closest compared to the LightHeart Gear Solo or the Six Moon Designs Skyscape X – only both of those are hybrid shelters and not two piece double wall shelters.

(edited to make small correct on date and removed two trails – I did the original list from brain recall, I was off a couple of years. impressive amount of mileage using this shelter)

[Sam Farrington]

John,
Nice info. Sounds like you may not be familiar with the Wanderlust Gear silnylon Nomad that Nimblewill owned earlier. This new one is very much the same tent, only in Cuben. The Wanderlust site is off the air; but if you are interested, I would be glad to email you PDFs of the old online catalog pages. Just PM me with an email address. Warning: Henry Shires of TarpTent has expressed considerable ire on this site about the former owner of Wanderlust taking funds and not fulfilling orders.

[Author]

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