Is this stitching strong enough?

[Stuart Murphy]

Not MYOG, but thought this the best place to get feedback on commercial products. There are pics of some of the details of 4 tents… Strong enough, or a point of failure waiting to happen? I will not state how the tents are used or what they are marketed/rated as… until after discussions, when I will reveal the tent brands/models. Keeps things fun and as bias free as possible for everyone.

Let me know what conditions you think they are suited to (all things being equal – I won’t say how many poles, how big the tents are, or materials other than to say they all include siliconised fabrics (1 or 2 sided)).

In retrospect, I wish I’d taken the photos outdoors and with a good camera (can’t really see sufficient detail in some shots) and perhaps been a bit more comprehensive with the photos (these are but part of the construction after all). Anyway it’s done now and I’m losing interest lol.

Cheers

Stuart

Tent A

One of the main perimeter peg points (possibly repaired as one of them started coming undone after tent was flattened)

 

Other side

One of the guy out points

Other end where guy attaches to this point

 

Tent B

One of the main perimeter peg points

Other side

Floor attachment

One of the main guy points

 

Tent C

One of the main perimeter peg points

Other side

Tent D

Pole sleeve

 

 

 

[Stuart Murphy]

They are all 30D fabric by the way. I got lazy with tent D. Maybe there is not enough info there to make a comparison.

Comparison with seem construction of other commercial tents useful and/or if you’ve tested your own seem construction to destruction please share for the benefit of all :)

 

[David Chenault]

Unless pushed hard I’d imagine all will be fine for some time.  #3 worries me the most, I imagine one could get the fabric to rip along the stitch line without too much effort, but absent snow loading or poor design that put a lot of wind loading on to one point that level is not likely to happen in the field.

In the testing I’ve done even fairly small fabric reinforcements sewn to sil spread the load well enough to bring the tear strength well above what I’d consider necessary for the field (ie into the hundreds of pounds).  Failure has always been along the stitch line at the edge of the reinforcement.

Stretch and geometry of the loading and fabric is always highly relevant.  For example, the second example probably isn’t as poorly performing as one might assume as the non-stretch zipper takes a bunch of the load.

[Stuart Murphy]

“For example, the second example probably isn’t as poorly performing as one might assume as the non-stretch zipper takes a bunch of the load.”

I think you’re right. I should have photographed the other peg points – they don’t have a zipper to help with any load. Will try and do that tomorrow and post

 

 

[Stuart Murphy]

David – here’s the extra photos for Tent B — main perimeter peg points (without zipper) – front and back. You can see that it is on a perimeter hem(?), takes advantage of a seam where there would be at least 2 layers of fabrick and is backed by an additional small semi-circle of fabric (same as the fly). There appear to be 2x double rows of stitching, which you can certainly make out in the 2nd photo below. Is this suitable for “hard” use, do you think (I know it probably depends on geometry of the tent generally)?

 

[David Chenault]

Less than ideal for a couple reasons, not expedition standard but probably fine for 3+ season use.

The little fabric reinforcement is on the small side in my book.  The stitch placement is good and double stitching is probably fine, but doesn’t leave much room for error.  A little bit of loose stitching due to age or abrasion could propagate a failure.  I don’t think bar tacks are necessary for tent tie outs, but they are a nice bit of overkill and generally guard against stitch failures pretty definitively.

Another thing to consider is the nature of the edge binding.  If it has a different amount of stretch compared to the main fabric it could spread loads poorly or in unexpected ways.

[Ryan Smith]

Should all be fine for 3 season, moderate weather use.

[Edward John M]

While it may be strong enough  the stitching in picture #1 is very sloppy and not at all professional

[Stuart Murphy]

Edward – I think that was a repair that was made… Maybe I won’t use them again.

 

The tents are:

 

Wilderness Equipment Second Arrow (old model)

Macpac Minaret

Terra Nova Laser Competition 2 (old model few years old)

Exped Vela I (very old model — actually 40D fabric — seems to be really nice workmanship on this at least from my uninitiated perspective, but the design is stupid in many ways… maybe they have improved it).

 

[Stuart Murphy]

I think there may be four layers of fabric the stitching on the web loops on Tent B are going thru (seems to be on at least 4 of the 8 and possibly all after inspecting with a strong back light).

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