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Poncho groundsheet I made
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Home › Forums › Gear Forums › Make Your Own Gear › Poncho groundsheet I made
- This topic has 8 replies, 4 voices, and was last updated 4 years ago by
Diane “Piper” Soini.
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Jan 18, 2021 at 9:35 am #3694353
A nice member here sent me a big piece of DCF from some thing he had that didn’t work.
I harvested the hood from a broken Zpacks rain jacket and turned it into a poncho. The poncho is very breathable compared to a rain jacket, but my arms won’t stay dry unless I pull them inside. This could annoy me. I might end up bringing some bread bags and rubber bands for my arms.
And it’s a bathtub groundsheet, too.
I only need the upturned edges to provide a better boundary to keep me inside and under the canopy, and to allow any potential rain to go under the sheet rather than over it. My body weight will prevent moisture from getting through the hood. I’m pretty good at campsite selection. I do not intend to sleep in a lake with this.
Here’s a closeup of a line I added to pull the long edges fully under the canopy.
It weighs 4.4 oz, most of the weight is the hood with its little bit of zipper. My rain jacket is 6.1 oz so it saves a little bit of weight, but it’s significantly heavier than a polycryo or a DCF groundsheet.
Jan 18, 2021 at 11:02 am #3694359That’s nice work. I don’t think I could manage to make a useful hood on my own, but upcycling an existing one is a great idea.
Jan 18, 2021 at 11:50 am #3694363Nice! Like the dual-use aspect and looks airy. Curious. How hard was it to attach the hood? Sewn, taped, or both? What variant of DCF?
Jan 18, 2021 at 12:37 pm #3694376I like it.
Jan 18, 2021 at 2:11 pm #3694405The hood was from a Zpacks cuben fiber rain jacket that they used to make a long time ago. The texture of this cuben fiber is much different from anything else made of DCF I’ve ever had.
To attach it I cut a straight slit in the ground sheet. I probably should have put it more off-center but I didn’t know how much off-center it should be, so I made it so the back of the neck was at the center.
I cut the hood off as straight as I could. I laid it flat and tried to draw a straight line from the back of the neck to the zipper in front. I sewed off the zipper so it would work as a much shorter zipper.
Then I used double-sided tape to start with and then single-sided tape on the outside and inside to finish it. It was hard to get it really smooth and perfect, so it is pretty wrinkly and not very perfect. The hood fabric was sort of stretched not not flat. Taping the edges at the ends of the slit was hard to do without wrinkles. But it turned out fine.
I noticed that at least with the hood it was possible to peel it off the tape and retape it. That was useful when I couldn’t get it quite straight. It explains how the action of my arms rubbing against my shoulder straps eventually peeled open the sleeves. I hope it stays attached well enough. It is horrible to try to sew through the tape. It wrecks your needle and your thread.
Jan 18, 2021 at 2:42 pm #3694408Nice that you were able to re-purpose the hood. The stuff is too expensive to let anything go to waste. It seems you’re slipping further and further down the DCF MYOG rabbit hole!
Jan 18, 2021 at 3:19 pm #3694412Yes. If only making stuff didn’t also add stuff.
Jan 18, 2021 at 3:31 pm #3694417LOL! Think of it as “replacing stuff”. IIRC, you also had a Lunar Duo? If so, there ya go. Next project. As my wife and I have one, I have a vested interest in seeing what you come up with.
Jan 18, 2021 at 5:40 pm #3694429The Lunar Duo is our two-person tent. The nice person who sent me the white DCF also sent me some green DCF. I would like to make a tarp with a catenary cut out of it someday.
I need to sell and give away a lot of stuff.
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