Just curious, re: Cubic tech and cuben fiber

[Anonymous]

Can a non business still buy 9 yds of Cuben from Cubic tech? Anybody know the current rate for the .34 and .51 Cuben in bulk?

[Jon Holthaus]

Just give them a ring. I called about pricing about a month ago in regards to different material, and within 2 minutes from my call they emailed me pricing.

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the info Jon. I thought about doing that previously, but on their site they kind of give the impression of, you must register before we will have anything to do with you.

Didn't want to waste my time on that, if they weren't still selling a minimum of 9 yds to us regular folks.

But now i shall call.

[Sam Farrington]

Justin,
What kind of Cuben are you looking for, and how much?
I might have something you can use.

[Anonymous]

Hi Sam,

Enough to make a pyramid shelter for 1 person, that could, if pushed, fit another person in it. Type, probably the .5 or .7 stuff (at first i was considering the .3, but changed my mind)

But, i'm not even sure how much i would need. Off hand, i was thinking minimum 10ftx10ft, but i'm guessing i would need at least 12ftx10ft.

My one foray into making a pyramid type shelter, using 7ftx10ft polycryo didn't go so well, not sure what i did wrong, but besides being a bit too small, can't get a taut enough pitch on all sides.

[Jerry Adams]

maybe polycro isn't strong enough or stretches too much to get tight pitch

did you use catenary curve on edges? That would help

[Anonymous]

Hi Jerry,

The 1.2 mil stuff seems strong enough, and doesn't seem to stretch that much. Using it in an A frame tarp configuration, it works great.

No, i didn't use catenary curves on the edges because i wanted to be able to close it up as low to the ground as i could if necessary. But yeah, it would probably help.

[Sam Farrington]

Justin,
Agree with Jerry. First get ahold of a Tipi pattern with catenary cut panels.
You can use the catenary chart, buried in BPL somewhere, but nothing beats a pattern.
I've even bought damaged tents just to get patterns. Since the sides of the tipi are often identical, you only need a pattern for one panel. It will save you a lot of time, and avoid disappointing results like you had with the polycro.

For material, please reconsider on the Cuben. It is very difficult to work with. Even some of the professional tentmakers have run into serious problems with it. You don't hear much about that, because no one likes to broadcast failure, especially if they have a business to promote. But word gets around. There are some good forum threads on BPL on making cuben tarps. Read all you can access by searching, and if you can make a tarp, particularly a shaped tarp that you are OK with, then would be the time to move on to the tipi, once you have developed techniques for working with the Cuben. The best MYOG Cuben tarp thread I saw was within the last couple years with a video link that showed his Mum doing the sewing.

A good material for a first tipi, or any other tent for that matter, would be the silnylon sold by Thru-Hiker. It has much higher water resistance than the silnylon generally sold on the market, and less sag because it is more difficult for moisture to penetrate the coat and be absorbed by the nylon, which loves water. But with any silnylon, you'll need buckles or cord locks at the stake-out points to keep the tipi taut.

If you are dead set on using the Cuben, you can always buy whatever quantity you want from Zpacks, or some of the other small companies that get mentioned in these forums, and you can get it shaded so it won't turn your tipi into as much of a hothouse. Even though that costs more, I think it is a better choice than buying direct form CT, because there are a variety of Cubens actually, with different compositions, and you can never be sure what you're getting. With Zpacks, you know the material is coming from a manufacturer who has done his homework and obtained the right material for tent making.

Good luck!

[Anonymous]

Hi Samuel

Thank you mucho for the in depth, detailed and thoughtful reply. Besides weight, there are some other reasons why i would like to use cuben–one it's really easy to tape stuff too. For example, i plan to tape heet sheet reflective liners to one side (which would take care of the hot house issue). Wouldn't be able to do that with silnylon.

After having read a lot of posts on here about cuben, i was under the impression that in some ways cuben is actually easier to work with than sil so i find some of the above a bit surprising. I've sewed some sil and i've sewed some cuben, and at least the heavier cuben seemed easier to sew than the sil.

Great suggestion about using a pattern. I do need to do that. Too much of my myog is improvisational and intuitive, which sometimes works well, but sometimes not at all. I was just thinking the other day after making a Apex vest, that i really should have used a pattern rather than guesstimating. It came out usable and ok, but not ideal.

Good point about the different cuben material and not necessarily knowing what one will get via CT. My only problem with buying from Zpacks is the price–not cheap.

If i can sell my cuben poncho-tarp and some other items, i've thought of buying a BPWD pyramid tent as it's fairly reasonable and probably better quality than i could make having little practice/experience with cuben so far.

[Brendan Swihart]

If you haven't worked with cuben much or made a 'mid before I'd recommend not doing it. That's a $$$ project(for an enclosed one person shelter you're probably looking at at least 7-8 yards) and it's almost guaranteed that if you haven't worked with cuben or made tents before it won't come out quite how you want. If you're set on using cuben I'd recommend making as many polycro prototypes as it takes to get it perfect and then do lots of BPL archive searching on constructing with cuben. It's easier to sew but it's not as easy as sewing it and being done like with sil. A cuben flat tarp is a better place to start.

If you really want a cuben mid you'd probably save some $ and time just buying one.

[Jerry Adams]

If you're going to do Cuben tarp, look at video http://www.suluk46.com/RandD%20-%20RD7%20Cuben%20Fiber%20Tarp.html

[Thomas Conly]

I noticed I your post that you said that you didn't want to use cat curves because you wanted a good seal with the ground but you don't have to have them along the bottom seam. You should put cat curves in the four corner seams from the bottom to the peak. Take. Look at pictures of pyramid style shelters. You'll probably notice that there is a curve to those sides.

[Anonymous]

Thank you for the further advice Brendan, Jerry, and Thomas. I'm leaning to thinking it might be better to buy from someone who has worked with it awhile.

I know folks here say that BPWD isn't the greatest quality, but the prices are more reasonable, and i would imagine that for someone in the business of making tents, that pyramid type tents are fairly easy to make well, even cuben ones…

(perhaps a misconception)

[Maris L]

BPWD does make their shelters in cuben, including their pyramid-type shelters. Can't attest to their quality, though.

[Anonymous]

Hi Maris,

Yes, i know (and knew that when i wrote previous posts). RE: quality i've just generally read on here that the quality isn't up to par as compared to say Zpacks, MLD and some of the other well liked cottage companies.

It could be that it's improved since some of these older posts. I'm guessing that a lot the cottage owners read this site and do take note.

[Author]

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