5.5oz Cuben tarp with carbon tieouts

Hi,

I have made a lot of gear using Cuben Fiber and never really used glue or tape, always sewed it. The only time I used one of the different glue products was for the neck on my Poncho / Tarp. I was having a hard time trying to figure out how to sew it so I used glue. That worked OK.

After reading this thread I called my local RS Hughes to ask about 3M 9460. They could sell me 9460 1" wide tape, one roll at a time, 6o yards for about $40.00. They also offered me a 3 yard sample to test with. I just received the 3 yard sample and now need to decide what I want to make with it.

Thank you Steve for this great write up. I will start building my own Cuben Tarp soon and will follow some of the techniques presented in this post. As an alternative to the Flat Carbon piece you used in your tie outs, others may consider small pieces cut from Polycarbonate Sheets. They are very easy to work with (the thinner versions of Polycarbonate can be even be cut with some sturdy scissors, you can drill holes on them, etc) and they are super strong.

Here a 2”x1”x0.0625” (yes that is 1/16” thick) piece taking 50lbs of weight. I drilled holes for attaching the guylines about 1/2” from the edge. The holes did not stretch at all after lifting the weights.

I got polycarbonate samples on my local Tap PlasticsTap Plastics store here in San Francisco. And I’m planning to cut some custom “triangular washers” for my cuben tie-outs.

Just ran across this thread on my search to buy a roll of cuben tape and I have to say I am very impressed. Congrats and I'd love to hear how it's holding up.

Thanks for the comments! The tarp is holding up well, just finished 2 weeks on the JMT. It was really only testing a couple of nights, and it did fine. Most of the trip I didn't need to pitch it and I just used a recently completed bug bivy (inspired by the one from MLD).

Steve

Lovely tarp.
Do you think putting cat curves in the bottom edges would work as well as it does in the ridgeline?