uses for Tyvek?

[Sharon J.]

Scavenged the end of a roll of tyvek from the remodel at my building. I know I've seen threads here on projects from tyvek, but the first couple of pages of forum search results didn't inspire me. So, any suggestions for what to do with it?

[John S.]

Anything made of fabric ; ).

[Gary Dunckel]

Cut into a 25" x 80" piece to use for a ground cloth to protect your pad (for a 2-person version, I like 54-60" x 84"). Fold the corners over, glue them, and then place the smallest brass grommet that a Vargo titanium needle stake will fit into. And you will have made a lightweight ground cloth that won't move around a bit.

[BlackHatGuy]

Make a jacket/trousers so when you're sitting around a campfire, the embers will burn the tyvek instead of the nice down jacket your're wearing for warmth.

Make a quilt liner so you can extend the temp range of your quilts without adding a lot of weight.

Buy a pico projector and make a nice, big movie screen out of the tyvek so you can have fun movie nights in the woods! (I speak from experience on this one…..)

[Franco Darioli]

Homewrap Tyvek is not going to work as a fabric substitute..(assuming that the OP Tyvek is of that type)
same as fabric Tyvek does not make a very useful groundsheet…

[Justin Baker]

Douglas, I am thinking about making a tyvek bivvy to protect my sleeping for cold weather when me and my hiking buddies usually keep a fire going all night. Hopefully embers are like lightning and don't fall in the same place twice.
That, or a bivvy made from a cotton bedsheet.

I use tyvek tarps every day for landscaping. We put all of the trimmings and stuff in them.

[Sharon J.]

Thanks for the ideas. I didn't realize about the different varieties of Tyvek – this probably is homewrap; it's considerably stiffer than mailing envelopes. There's more than I need for a ground sheet, and I'm not really set up to do anything much more technical, so I guess if anyone local wants to get the rest, they're welcome. Just hate to see something potentially useful go to waste.

[Franco Darioli]

There are several "families" of Tyvek. At the soft ,least waterproof, end there is the cloth type at the other end the most waterproof but rather stiff homewrap version.
Of the cloth type you probably have labels on clothing and pillow cases made from it however that is also very different from the type used in disposable clothing such as the hospital stuff.
here are 3 versions, one of cloth and two of homewrap :

( I have used 3 differnt versions of "Homewrap")

Franco

[William S]

I'm just catching the MYOG bug and bought a roll of tyvek to see how I like it. So far, I have made a tyvek bivy and a backpack using the homewrap variety.

One of the uses I have considered for tyvek is making reuseable patterns. It's much more durable than paper and it seems like it would be useful for making patterns for something that you may make more than one of (eg. clothing). I haven't actually done this yet, though.

[Jerry Adams]

That's a good idea – patterns.

I have some left over from a construction project.

[Author]

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