I am hiking the PCT next year and wanted to get away from my tarptent. Sleeping under the stars is a huge deal and massive condensation sucks. The design came from trial and error.
Although time consuming, making a cheap one-to-one fabric model helped greatly. The supplies cost about $225 for everything used in the pictures. Momentum, Nanoseeum, and SpinnTex EXP from thru-hiker.com were used.

These are the creations from the extra fabric. There are a bunch of stuff sacks, front pockets for the Jam2(3g each), a bear bag kit, a cup cover, and bug pants (42g).

This is one (131g) of the two bivys. They both have the same setup, but the other one is smaller(120g).

This is the tarp (148g without lines or stakes).

The bug net (58g with strap) setup up is hard to explain. It is a dome with a spandex bottom edge. Here is a stretchy strap that ties around the belly of the bivy. The net will cling to all sides of the sack with a bit of tricky cutting. I'm using straws to sub as the frame in the picture but that is just a temp rigging. There is enough room to read and type, but thats it. I would rank this as 92% bug proof which is perfect for the weight.

Total Numbers
$270, needles and cheap fabric
45 hours of easy with-a-beer labor
Will be about 395 grams or 13.9 ounces for the bivy, bug net, tarp, lines(going to use aircore 1), and eight stakes...

I'm cool with that!

Edited by JeremyWeaver on 12/15/2008 15:48:34 MST.

Jeremy -

That is a truly impressive project. Would you care to comment on your choices in material and what were the most challenging aspects of the project? Where did you source your materials? Did you create your own patterns? How many sewing skills did you possess before tackling this project?

Hey, with any luck, I will be able to see your creation on the PCT next year. Are you a northbounder? I hope to see you around kickoff and your great equipment.

Dirk

Jeremy -

Impressive work. Over the past year I've started making some of my own gear, and I'd love to hear more about the design and construction of your tarp. Did you add a cat curve to the ridge line? What type of seams did you use? What are the rough dimensions? It would be great to see a more detailed view of the beak design if you ever have the time. I may be emulating your tarp design with sil-nylon in the next few weeks.

Also, I spent five weeks last summer hiking from Sierra City south to Whitney portal while the northbound PCT herd came through - the bug pants would have been a welcome addition to my kit for parts of that stretch of trail. Great work!

Edited by matt_f on 12/15/2008 11:02:39 MST.

This batch of gear was the first; I had never taken up sewing and never thought that I would want to. Having thru-hiker.com made getting the material easy, the machine was the hard part. The patterns came from a bunch of web surfing but mostly experience. Making the mock setup out of cheap supplies was absolutely necessary because I was going off general dimensions with no real pattern. The tarp was defiantly time consuming. There is a diagonal cut ridge with a full strap for support, the bottom measures two feet for one side, the top measures three, and the main pieces run seven feet. The beak comes from a three by two piece which got it's cut by setting up the tarp to measure. the 'entrance' side is about ten inches shorter with velcro to open the area up a bit. There is no beak at the other end, I will to this thing out into a couple of rain storms to find out if I really need more cover. I would give up the stitch but I have no idea the names or even if I was using the best type. Thanks for the props. Matt you will thank yourself for wasting all that time on a cheap fabric trial run at your tarp. Dirk I will be at the kick off for sure! Heading north and can't wait.

Edited by JeremyWeaver on 12/15/2008 15:45:56 MST.

That looks like some good work, great looking set up. I too, will be hiking the PCT this coming summer, maybe I'll see you there. Haven't nailed down my shelter system yet but the tarp/bivy combo is up for consideration and homemade gear is an option for me (I can't sew a lick, but my mom is a top notch seamstress) Thanks for posting the pics.

I've slowly worked myself to the tarp/bivy. Have a tarptenta and a seedhouse as a backup but hope I will never need to call for them. After making my own, I will most likely never buy another shelter. Having control of the dimensions and functionality is awesome! I could not find a bugnet rigging that I liked - so I had to do a bit of sewing even if I purchased a tarp and bivy. If you can't find want you want, make your own! It's a bunch more fun if nothing else.

Right on Jeremy!

If you subscribe to BPL you will find a whole lot of MYOG sewing projects - clothing, gear, etc.

Cheers

Was out in a great rain storm! Everything held up well but the tarp could be a little longer. Haven't needed to use the bug net yet, not sure when the ants will be back but hope to give her one test before the trip. The major question I had a couple of months ago was all about the noise. Now that I crashed in the bivy a bunch of time, I would recommend that no one waste their time worrying about it.