Mid panel tie outs and stakes

[Jerry Adams]

okay, I got to ask, which side do you only put one one?  Must be the door

[Opogobalus]

Indeed. It’s a beaked mid-shaped tarp, with storm doors. So something between a cricket, solomid and hexamid. The beak is about 2/3rds up, so kind of between a mid panel and apex tie out, the doors need their own guy.

[Jerry Adams]

picture?

I have something similar, keep tweeking the design a bit

[Opogobalus]

To disappoint, it’s not a myog project. Tipik-Tentes Pioulou :)

[Jerry Adams]

https://tipik-tentes.fr/pioulou

That looks pretty good, about the same as mine.  Except I have no problem with a zipper on the door.

[Opogobalus]

So far I quite like the door. Lack of zip is quicker, easier, less likely to break and less weight. But I haven’t used it enough to know if it’ll become annoying long term, or it the door overlap is a problem weather wise (I don’t think so).

[Jerry Adams]

My zipper broke once.  It was #3.  Now I have #5 but that could break too.

That looks like a pretty good zipperless design, maybe on my next iteration.

If my zipper broke I could probably manage some how for the rest of that trip.

[Dan @ Durston Gear]

I sympathize with wanting to eliminate zippers from tent and other designs because of the weight (mostly) and failure potential (although rare and most alternatives could fail too). However, every solution I’ve seen to date is far harder to use because it turns a one handed job into a two handed job. Instead of reaching one arm out in the vestibule to close a zipper, you’re reaching both arms and thus your upper body out in the vestibule to conduct a relatively fine motor skill task. It’s difficult if the distance is great (deep vestibule) or the weather is cold (low dexterity). I’ve owned a TarpTent with clips and spoken to a lot of Zpacks users, and the general sentiment is that they’re awkward and hard to use.

This design here looks well built, but will suffer from the same downsides. It’s clearly a two handed, fine motor skill task. I’d really like to design an alternative door closure mechanism that is one-handed and doesn’t require dexterity, but I’m not sure it’s possible. Thus far I’ve been stumped.

[Opogobalus]

Jerry, Dan outlines the negatives well.

Personally I don’t find it too be much faff. Tried it with gloves and it was fine. But I’ve only done a night in the yard, so i could imagine I find it more of a hassle in the field. Not a deal breaker for me though. The buckles aren’t “stupid light” here and are easy to use in reality. My solomid zipper was worse, as it would catch in the storm flap (I know your design avoids this dan – nice). But in reality I don’t think I ever thought about that as an annoyance until just now!

The other thing I like about the storm flaps is the greater ability for different pitch and door types. A higher door pitch is possible as a kind of in between of the tight to ground and fully open pitch. Which i expect would be the pitch i use most as a calm night with a little more protection than just the beak, and for rainy nights without mild breeze.

[Jerry Adams]

yeah, I think either zipper or no zipper works

an individual could try both and see what they prefer, or arbitrarily choose one or the other.

 

[Dan @ Durston Gear]

My solomid zipper was worse, as it would catch in the storm flap
I don’t know why MLD was (is?) using storm flaps over their water resistant (Uretek) zippers since the Uretek zips work well and a flap isn’t very effective anyways, so it just adds weight and causes zipper snags. I cut the flap off my DCF DuoMid.

[Opogobalus]

Indeed. Mine is older, possibly it wasn’t water resistant

[Jerry Adams]

I just use regular zipper with no storm flap

Theoretically, a little water might drip through but since it’s steep, water tends to flow down along the zipper.  Or the zipper is actually a bit of a ridge so water flows away from it.

It’s where I enter the tent so I never have anything directly below it anyway

I have had it rain, then freeze, so it’s difficult to zip or unzip.

[Jacob]

How stable is pulling out a side panel of a pyramid style tent if you build the shape into the tarp? I’m trying to figure how best to use a zpacks hiking staff as the sole structure of a tent. Inspired by tarps like this (https://backpackinglight.com/make_your_own_gear_5_yards_to_sul_part_3/) I realized the peak could be at any height, not just the top of the pole. Once the peak is lowered, guying out the back inline with the peak of the pole adds even more internal volume. But is this stable? My intuition says if there was a second pole to guy the back up over a higher point then to the ground that would be stable. Likewise the line from the top of the pole to the stake could angle upward at the guy out point and it would be stable. But what about at the limit where there is a straight line of tension from the top of the pole to the ground? I’m planning on building some tyvek versions to try experience the differences in internal volumes, but I’d really appreciate feedback on how this might work out.

[Jerry Adams]

I dunno

You can also do prototypes in 3 mil polyethylene

Another thing is to make a prototype with just string.  To see if there’s enough room inside, not so useful for this case

Another thing would be to build something with nylon.  Add some guyout points (like 1/2 inch grosgrain).  Try the guyout points and see what works best.  I’ve done that and decided they weren’t very useful, but since then I’ve thought I should try this again, one guyline on the middle of one side next to where I’m sleeping.  Maybe one half way up.

[Dan @ Durston Gear]

Right now that guyline isn’t pulling OUT on the panel. It’s pulling parallel to it, so it’ll deflect inward very easily. Ideally you’d be pulling in the direction of the red arrow below (which you could do with an external pole). To have a more solid shape, you’d need to stake it out further and/or lower it, as this annotated diagram shows:

[Geoff Caplan]

I think a lot depends on the geometry of the shelter.

I agree that the benefits of mid-panel guys in mids is arguable – my TrailStar does just fine without them. But I have a good deal of experience with A frames, and mid-panel guys around 1/3 of the way up the side panels will significantly reduce flapping and increase stability.

This is the classic Phoenix Phortress, which veteran tent reviewer Chris Townsend says is the most stable tent he ever experienced. I personally sat out some pretty stonking storms in this tent: you literally didn’t know if it was storming until you stuck your head outside:

Here’s a more modern lightweight design – the Kifaru SuperTarp – which by all reports is stable in 70mph Alaskan windstorms:

Without the tie outs, these designs would probably survive a big storm. But they would be much more noisy.

[Kevin @ Seek Outside]

We get asked often about mid panel guy outs on our smaller shelters, mostly people that seem to think they are needed everywhere because that is what they have seen or perhaps needed to stabilize other shelters. We advise against one that are not there because we specifically design to add the guy out points in the locations they are and there is little benefit in having them elsewhere and in fact they can cause distortion in other locations (as Dan alluded to). For us, it really comes into play in the design and a combination of seam orientation, cat cuts etc, and what we are trying to accomplish. Then we put a highly reinforced guy out in the location we feel they are needed or there is a substantive benefit.

 

Also, as some one else noted, they can cause a really poor look if they are located too high and don’t have enough cordage. Vectoring with a pole or stick is a great solution or just don’t put them too high. Personally I think there is a ratio of guy out height to guy out length that works well. To be useful , most guy outs need to be a certain height .. but not that much taller.

 

Kevin

[Diane “Piper” Soini]

We use our mid-way guy line only under certain conditions.

The first time we ever used it was because we set up our tent in a designated campsite in Glacier and then experienced a huge rainstorm that, because of how we had to fit our tent into the tentsite, resulted in this giant growing bubble of water forming on the roof of the tent on one side. We were afraid that the water was going to eventually fold up the tent in a way that would result in all that water coming in. It looked like about 20 gallons of water. We had to go out in the pouring rain and bail out the water, then tie a guy line to the mid-way loop thing to prevent it. And then we were soaking wet so so much for trying to ride out the rain in the tent, but at least the bathtub floor worked and our stuff inside was dry.

On other occasions we’ve found the extra guy line helps in the wind.

So we keep lines there so we’re ready for come what may.

[Lance]

Dan, What are your thoughts on using small round magnets to secure the door of the vestibule? It would clearly be a balance between weight savings vs making them strong enough to clasp shut even in wind. I’m making a tent and thinking about magnets vs a zipper or clip at the bottom. Thoughts?

[Geoff Caplan]

Well, if you’re going to use magnets, keep ’em away from your compass!

[Dan @ Durston Gear]

“Dan, What are your thoughts on using small round magnets to secure the door of the vestibule? It would clearly be a balance between weight savings vs making them strong enough to clasp shut even in wind. I’m making a tent and thinking about magnets vs a zipper or clip at the bottom. Thoughts?”

Sorry I missed this question a few weeks ago. If you’re talking about magnets to hold the door itself shut in lieu of a zipper (rather than merely to keep it rolled up when open), I think it would be a disaster. If you use only a few magnets then the weight is reasonable but the strength simply isn’t close to being there even with rare earth magnets. The door will just blast open in a wind gust or if you put a lot of tension on the pitch.

If you use a whole bunch of them, then it’s heavy and you get this giant mess where all the magents stick to themselves when packed up. I built a tent like this with a “magnetic zipper” and the magnets all wadded up into a ball that was tedious to unravel when it was un-pitched.

Zippers are heavy and a potential failure point, so I’d love to avoid them. But any replacement needs to functional well and be elegant to use. Magnets can be elegant to use but they don’t function well. Clips can be strong enough (function well) but I haven’t seen any designs yet that are elegant to use. They’re almost all two handed jobs.

[Geoff Caplan]

And if you use a clip at the bottom, the overlapping area on the doors is going to flap like crazy in certain wind directions. So you need at least one additional closure, as Z-packs discovered. A lot of faff in use, and not the right tradeoff for me – through lots of Duplex customers seem to disagree.

Like Dan I’ve been casting around for an elegant zipless vestibule that offers the same ease of use and flexibility, but if such a thing existed I suspect that someone would have found it by now. My current feeling is that for most applications a short, straight #5 zip is the least bad solution and should be plenty reliable in the field. Most failures seem to happen with long, curved #3 zips…

[Erica R]

Mid-Panel pullouts on Zpacks Hexamid Twin:

This tent needed more headroom!  Also, there are now 3 lines slanting to the ground on each end, which you can’t see in the photo. The extra 2 lines (and 2 stakes) are to further increase the headroom. Total weight (includes tent bag and extra stake, 24 oz). Includes 5 oz poncho used as bathtub floor.

 

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