Argon Silnylon Pyramid Tarp – Hex

I'm impressed. What are the dimensions of the individual triangles? How many yards of fabric did you use total?

They're isosceles triangles with dimensions:

Height = 81.36''
Width = 58''

In total, I used 15 yards of fabric. I thought about making 12 right angle triangles to reduce the amount of necessary fabric to maybe 8 yards, but I would have had to shrink the dimensions a little to account for seam allowances and it would have doubled the number of flat-felled seams I'd have to sew and then seam seal.

That looks really good

Your pinning must have worked because the seams look taut

1.1 oz/yd2 is good. Makes it harder to justify Cuben

"1.1 oz/yd2 is good. Makes it harder to justify Cuben"

Yes, particularly when the Argon Sil is $6 per yard. I think it may pack smaller than cuben too.

I had initially planned to use a #5 zipper. But between Roger Caffin saying he uses #3 zippers and the tents from Tarptent and Six Moon Designs using #3 zippers, I decided to give one a try.

Beautiful job!

Great job! A lot of coverage for 1 pound. A number 5 zipper is long term solution for little weight gain. My next project.

Thanks

Thing of beauty!!

"I had initially planned to use a #5 zipper. But between Roger Caffin saying he uses #3 zippers and the tents from Tarptent and Six Moon Designs using #3 zippers, I decided to give one a try."

I used one for more than a year, probably 60 nights, before it failed, and maybe that was a fluke. This was with a pyramid tent.

Definitely baby it – like when you zip it closed, don't let there be a lot of pressure pulling it apart.

#5 zipper doesn't weigh that much more. Probably good in an application where there is a lot of force pulling aprt the zipper.

Very, very fine work! Thanks very much for sharing :-)

Yeah, I will second the drool…well, sort'a;-)

There are two basic issues that prevent me from going from a shaped tarp (similar to Yama Mountain Gear's Cirriform DW except a bit larger at 37sqft) to a full pyramid.

1) The doors do not prevent rain from entering when open. This also excludes a good share of other tents. Sorry, but midnight runs, setting up in the rain, etc, can all be bad without some sort of awning over the door. (Mine simply does away with the door.)

2) No floors or half floors at best. This relates to 1) above.

Other than that, you do some fine work!
Thanks for sharing.

Of course different tents for different people/situations, but

I stake one side of the door and open the other so there's only 1/4 of the tent floor exposed to rain

If it's raining, I'll get into tent and stand on the 1/4 exposed area, close the door, take off wet jacket and shake it off on the ground there. Set wet jacket on the ground on the edge of that 1/4 exposed area. Then sit down on my sleeping bag which is on a 1/2 of the area that's totally dry.

No reason to have awning, because water's going to drip off me onto the ground there anyway.

And just as well having no floor anywhere so any water soaks into ground rather than sitting on waterproof floor. With waterproof floored tent, occasionally, water puddles up, although with proper technique that won't happen.

The other 1/4 of tent floor, that's under the staked door, stays dry, and is good to set gear that I want to keep dry.

My dog and I will typically be sleeping behind the pole in this tarp (using the front half as a big vestibule), so it doesn't matter if rain gets in when opening the door. This will let me have the door open all the way during rain if I like for good ventilation, or zip it up for wind. With pyramid tarps, I've found that if you leave the buckle at the bottom secured, you just open the zipper a little bit to go out and not much water or snow gets in.

I will be careful with the #3 zipper. The buckle at the bottom does a really good job of keeping stress off it. If it breaks, that will just give me an opportunity to try out my zipper-less door idea, which is just overlapping fabric.

I estimate that using Argon silnylon saved approximately 3 – 3.5 oz on this shelter weight over normal 30D silnylon (at 1.35 – 1.4 oz per square yard).

This place has some 20D silnylon (at claimed 1.27 oz per square yard weight), that would add about 1.5 oz, but I've never used or seen the fabric. Not sure how it compares to Argon sil:

http://ripstopbytheroll.com/collections/silnylon

where'de you get the argon sil 1.1 oz/yd2?

I got the Argon sil from Dutchware (he's currently out of stock):

http://dutchwaregear.com/diy-stuff/

Looks like it's currently out of stock. He has a subforum to keeps tabs though:

https://www.hammockforums.net/forum/forumdisplay.php?107-Dutchware

Cool. You should sleep in it while pitched there inside. Just for the excitement of it.

Nice work. I like the brown.

A couple updates:

I seam-sealed the Argon Hex. Total weight of the completed tarp is 15.0 oz

Also, I made an inner tent for it. The specs:

30D silnylon floor (from Lightheart Gear – blue material)
Argon 67 for the lower half (green material, extends to approx 20'' above the ground)
Nylon tulle for the upper half (brown netting, from JoAnnes)
Max dimensions: 90'' long x 48'' wide, 7'' bathtub floor
Weight: 11.8 oz

This gives me a total shelter weight of 26.8 oz + 1 oz pole extender = 27.8 oz

Here are some pictures of the inner:

It's impossible to tell from the pictures, but this is what the floor looks like relative to the tarp:

It should work out well for my dog and I. I offset the pole a little bit so we are both on one side, giving us a very large protected area – one which I can vary the exposure of with the zipper.

The inner does pitch a little loose – it is not as taut as I would like it to be. I think I made two errors in dimensioning my inner tent:

1. I forgot to account for the catenary curve of the tarp's ridgelines, so I lose a little bit of interior room there
2. The elastic cords + loops to attach inner to outer come out to around 2-3 inches vs. the 1 inch I designed for

I think these two add up. The inner being a little loose does not seem like a big issue right now, but if it proves to be a problem (i.e. condensation for some reason, general annoyment, etc), then I figure I can just roll over and sew the main seams of the inner to take up some of the slack. For now, I will leave it as is.

Sewing the inner was substantially more work than the outer. Composing it of three materials, all of which were a little difficult to dimension due to the non-standard geometries, resulted in lots of seams. And sewing tulle is never easy. On top of this, my old sewing machine broke half-way through the inner, so I ended up buying a new one (it would have cost $60 to repair, and it only cost $80 new, so I bought a nice Singer 401A).

I'm taking the tent out this weekend for a couple nights, and then should be using it lots once the fall backpacking season gets under way in the SW.

A couple more photos (red pad is Prolite Plus Womens – 20'' x 66'', other is 20'' x 36'' ridgerest). It is dog approved:

That is really beautiful! Somehow, you got the seams just right to pitch taut.
Only wish you'd used another low denier silnylon, though it would have been much more expensive. When the time comes, please let us know how it performs in heavy rain. Thanks.

P.S. Purchased some high HH silnylon from LHG over a year ago that weighed out to 1.28 oz/sq/yd. Thought pretty sure it was 30D, but maybe not. Have looked at 15-20D tarps to disassemble. GoLite has a PU coated one that is around 1.12 oz and 1200 mm HH, and Terra Nova has silcoated ones about the same weight that are 3000mm HH, but the end cost to get the material comes to even more than Cuben.

The 30D silnylon I purchased from LHG for the inner tent's floor weighed around 1.5 oz/sqyd. A little heavier than I wanted, but the stuff feels very durable and thick, so it should be quite waterproof.

I think if I was going to purchase a tarp to disassemble and use for fabric, it would be Sea to Summit's "Escapist Tarp". They're rather large (one model is 10'x10') and use 15D Sil/PU fabric (probably similar to GoLite's material). I have another design in mind for a tent I'd like to build sometime over the next year – maybe I'll use that stuff or just go with cuben.

Missed this back in July. That is a gorgeous tipi. Very impressive.

Quite a nice shelter!

Perfect fabric/design combo as well. Nice steep walls means no huge worries on the Argon Sil, and with all that fabric, the lighter Argon is perfect.

Is the fabric dead though?
I did check the Hammock forum updates and poked around a bit- but guessing that too many complaints if one doesn't accept the limits and build a steep wall shelter like this may have killed it?

Any insight or updates? Anything close?

No idea – I am not Dutch and I don't sell the fabric. I would contact him if you have questions about the fabric's availability. I also don't frequent Hammock Forums, but my searches reveal generally positive experiences with Argon Sil.

I've set it up in my backyard. It withstood a large wind storm that knocked over some trees in my neighborhood. Stretch seems average for silnylon. 40% chance of rain this weekend, but probably nothing heavy.