Nemo’s new no-sag nylon/polyester tent fabric

The 100% recycled part is good. For the other claims – we’ll see.

But my baloney detector is already flashing red.

OBJ: “meets flammability requirements without fire retardant chemical additives.”
Hmmm, CPAI-84 was changed recently so that most backpacking tent fabrics can meet that previously stupid U.S.-only flammability requirement without toxic chemical additives. Yawn.

OBJ: “nylon fibers provide exceptional strength”
Compared to what? Several backpacking shelter makers are using lightweight silpoly in place of saggy-soggy silnylon and crazy-expensive-if-you-can-get-it DCF. And those tents aren’t falling apart, including the silpoly tent I own.

OBJ paraphrased: combination of nylon and polyester fibers
Which could be the best of both worlds – or the worst. We’ll see.

PopSci: “Nemo’s new Osmo fabric is made from a checkered weave of durable, weather-repelling nylon and moisture-wicking polyester.”
Tell me again why I want moisture wicking in a tent fabric?

And just to reinforce Gear Junkie’s reputation, a little lower in the linked article:
“Because sleeping bags are universally tested with an R-value 4 pad underneath”
Actually, so-called EN ratings are based on an R 4.8 pad. Big difference. And not universal.

Having said all that – maybe NEMO’s “breakthrough” fabric is something reasonably obvious, like a nylon-reinforced 10D polyester coated with silicone, with a PEU (not PU) layer inside so it can be seam taped but not break down. Might be pretty light, and strong enough, more or less a “rip-stop silpoly”. We’ll see.

— Rex, the cranky and cynical

It’s PFC free?

It’s also gluten free and non GMO?

I wonder how much the fabric weighs

— Rex, the cranky and cynical

Get off my cyber lawn!

:)

It could be a neat fabric, but with little concrete evidence or explanation for its benefits it’s hard to take it too seriously. Especially with all the baloney mixed in (which might be the fault of Gear Junkie moreso than Nemo).

The claims about fire retardant performance and PFCs can be set aside because that doesn’t have much to do with the core fabric (e.g. PFCs are a low importance coating, while FR is mostly due to the rules changing).

I think the core question is whether blending nylon and poly is a good idea. That’s a good question to ask but I won’t say too much on the topic because I haven’t really looked into it. However, I do have some hesitations. Specifically, one thing I see over and over is the importance of constructing a tent canopy where all the materials have consistent stretch properties. I’ve seen numerous examples of shelters where some elements (e.g. reinforcement areas, seam tapes) have more or less stretch than other elements (e.g. the canopy fabric) and that regularly leads to problems. For example, if a reinforcement is more stretchy than the canopy fabric it doesn’t really reinforce anything because when a load is applied the reinforcement just stretches while the main fabric is left bearing the load. This issue happened on SMDs first DCF tent circa 2008 that was DCF but with nylon reinforcement where they nylon would just stretch and do almost nothing. The opposite is also a problem. For example, Locus Gear used to use a very low stretch PVC coated reinforcement on their nylon shelters but it was much less stretchy and also didn’t distribute stress properly (they’ve since switched).

As that applies here, nylon and poly have quite different stretch characteristics, since nylon has a lot more stretch in the fibers. Thus, the nylon fibers might be quite strong, but seemingly if you pulled on the fabric they would simply stretch while leaving the less stretchy poly fibers bearing all the load. A pure nylon or pure poly fabric will bear the load more or less evenly on all the fibers, whereas when the stretch is inconsistent the load will fall to portion of the fibers. As such, the nylon fibers might be stronger but results in a fabric that fails at a much lower load. All of this may get worse in the rain, as the nylon fibers will relax even further, since they expand as they absorb water. It’s really hard to envision how the nylon fibers will be doing anything to hold the shelter together when those fibers are both stretchy and expanded compared to the poly fibers. Maybe they’ve solved this somehow (e.g. gluing the whole thing together some how) but until we see some more evidence I’m skeptical this would be stronger than pure poly and wary of mixing dissimilar stretch materials in a stressed application like this.

Regarding the weight savings, the old 15D sil/PU nylon they used would have weighed about 1oz/yd and they’d only have about 10-14 sq yds in the tents, so there probably was only 10-14oz of the old fabric. There’s no way most of the 11oz savings is coming from the fabric. I also note that in Nemo’s press release, they don’t say anything about saving weight. Rather, they talk about water repellency, FRs, and PFC (which have very little to do with nylon vs poly) and then do mention 3x less sag than nylon (which is a poly benefit).

My guess is that this material is largely nylon with next gen coatings (for their PFC, FR, and repellancy claims) but they’ve added a minority polyester weave to avoid the wrinkling when the nylon component expands/sags.

Disclaimer: I own Durston Gear where I design and sell tents.

The new fabric, Osmo, will be featured in two tents next year – the Dagger and the Hornet Elite

Stumphges, I’ll be super interested in the Hornet Elite 1P and what this fabric does to its OA weight. I have the current version, and love it.

Thanks for the intel, and Happy New Year!

Dan, thanks for chiming in. Your thoughts on the problems that might arise with weaving two materials with different stiffness and elasticity are sharp. I think you’re right that the polyester yarns will end up carrying all the load, especially when wet. You conclude: “My guess is that this material is largely nylon with next gen coatings (for their PFC, FR, and repellancy claims) but they’ve added a minority polyester weave to avoid the wrinkling when the nylon component expands/sags.” That seems likely.

It is interesting that they’ve gone through so much trouble to make this dual-material weave rather than just use polyester. The conventional wisdom for many years has been that nylon is much stronger than poly, so I guess it makes sense that they would want to keep that tensile strength in the weave, although I know that the data you’ve seen has you questioning that assumption. But why go through so much trouble to try to combine the two materials, especially considering the potential trouble with the whole idea that you’ve identified? Marketing? Possibly, but most consumers are not going to get too jazzed at the prospect of a nylon/poly weave.

The only way I can see them having reduced a lot of weight with the fabric is going down to 10d with sil/sil coating, which could conceivably get them in the range of the Portal 2 at mid-40 oz, but I highly doubt Gear Junkie got 11 ounces shaved from the current version right. They should be embarrassed by that article.

A pity that this fabric will not be available for inspection. It would be very interesting to do some tear and tensile strength testing on it.

Rex, of course you’re right to be both cranky and skeptical:)

interesting that the idea that polyester has an advantage of not sagging when wet has now gone mainstream

I would have thought this idea would only be on obscure websites of geeky people like BPL

I’ll wait for more information to come out on it, but I am intrigued. A no-sag Hornet would be awesome, depending on how it affects the shelter’s weight.

The current Hornet Elite is using 7D PeU Nylon Ripstop for the fly, so I do wonder if Nemo has found a way to make something similarly light but with polyester to avoid the sag. I don’t think a 7D silpoly would be strong enough.