myog mountaineering cuben tunnel tent?

[Pierre Descoteaux]

Up here in the north it’s also know as white gas if it helps.

One more company worth looking into for a tunnel tent: Lightwave at http://www.lightwave.uk.com/products/tents/arctic?product=product1

Cheers

[Franco Darioli]

What you call white gas (Coleman fuel) in Australia and NZ we call Shellite.
(Shell used to make it)

[Ryan C]

Pierre,

The tent projects you have posted are very well done. Congrats and thanks for sharing!

> “I produced 2 other tents since this one and they were not Cuban ones.”

Some of the prior discussion gave possible reasons for not using Cuben (DCF), and I can make several conjectures as to why you didn’t use it on your 4 P 4 Season tunnel tent, but would you mind walking us through your actual thought process for choosing the fabric for your two most recent tents? Thanks!

[Pierre Descoteaux]

Hi Ryan, the primary factor was cost. I love making stuff but simply can’t afford to always use the most expensive laminate or fabric every time.

For my 1st tent, I wanted to make the lightest possible 3 man tunnel and to do so I wanted to use Cuben. This also forced me to learn many different techniques (sewing, taping, gluing, laminating, etc.)

My second tent project was simply to try to make a lighter (not the lightest) 2 man geodesic tent to prove a few things to a friend and to myself. At that time there was lots of talk about how “great” the light silpoly/pu was for tarps. I figured that the 1.24osy (going from memory…) of that fabric would make it light enough and still keep the cost low. Working with that fabric made me very aware of its inability to cope with any small tear or punctures. Once a tear forms on its edge, it will very easily propagate creating long straight tears. I will not use this type of fabric anymore. In that project, I also used <1.0osy silpoly (non-pu treated, 0.94osy again from memory) and it fared better but still nowhere near silnylon<s tear strength. Even the silpoly/pu 4000 was less then impressive in this aspect. Despite its high HH and low cost.

For my 4 man base camp: I want it to withstand snow loads and high wind while I’ll be climbing technical routes for a few days away from base camp. I need the fabric to resist tears and to not have small punctures growing into huge long tears. The silnylon I used has a high tear strength of 18Kg! I am truly impressed by this fabric! It will sag some which I dislike but it seems to be its only draw back.

I have since made a Cuben Hybrid  alpine pack (45/50L) with some pure Spectra pockets (sides and front) and a top lid.I also may have to make an ice clinbing (35L) roll top bag soon enough since my TX07 ice pack is getting worn out. I will use Cuben Hybric simply because I have enough laying around but otherwise, I would order some X-pac. Easy to work with, lower cost and still light enough.

I hope this all makes sense and help you understand my decision making…

Cheers

Pierre

[Sam Farrington]

Hi Pierre,
Re: ‘Even the silpoly/pu 4000 was less then impressive in this aspect.’

Sorry to hear that. I’ve also reached the point of using only nylon, despite the sagging in damp and cool conditions. The ‘Mountain’ silnylon looks pretty good for high abuse areas, like floors.
Would enjoy seeing some pix of your geodesic tent.

Thanks.

[Ryan C]

Thanks Pierre.  I really appreciate your thorough explanations!

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