I just finished a Minitent based off a design from "How to Make Your own Lightweight Camping & Hiking Gear" by Vick Roling Hines. My tent is a bit smaller. The finished weight including lines is 12.75 oz (14.50 oz including 8 ti stakes). Not bad for a shelter made from silnylon with a floor and full sealed netting.

Jamie



Rear tent with beak...


Inside tent, sides have vents...


Zippered door open...

Edited by jshortt on 10/17/2009 09:44:54 MDT.

Great job, the completed project looks very nice. I will be watching your future trip reports to see pictures of your new shelter in use.

Very nice looking Jamie.

What magic do you use to keep the line on the top of the front pole?

Greg, I'm using ti goat poals. I have the optional camera mount on both poles. This means there is about 1/4" mounting screw sticking out the top. I tied a simple loop knot and placed the loop over the screw. I'm not sure how much wind it would take but today is windy and it did fine.

I really love the camera mount. Anytime I want a pic of myself I just screw in my camera and push the pole into the ground.

Jamie

SUper cool!

Scale of 1 to 10 on difficulty for a neophyte seamster?

Pretty classic.

Cheers

Congratulations on a really professional looking job.
Good luck in your first night in it.
cheers,
fred

Jamie, Very Nice job on the tent. I recently got a used copy off of amazon, and this book has a lot of really cool ideas in it.

Jamie -

Excellent job. Care to share any more dimensions with us? I'm planning on making some sort of bug-proof solo shelter and this looks like it might fit the bill....maybe even in cuben.

Matt

Thanks all!

As far as difficulty goes it was a bit tough to get all the panels to line up correctly so I would not recommend this type of tent until you have a few projects under your belt.

Matt, The dimensions were (not including beak length):

front = 48" wide and 36" tall
rear = 24" wide and 18" tall

the top portion (or roof/gray panels) was designed to hang 4" above so the roof portion is really 32" tall in front and 14" tall in rear.

The length was supposed to be 7' but somehow I lost a few inches and it is closer to 6'10". My initial tests indicate that this is still a fine length for me (5'10" tall guy).

The dimensions were designed to be the smallest I thought possible for me. I believe the beaks add significant protection for little weight. Without beaks the tarp would need to be longer.

As far as how I came up with these dimensions...I started with dimensions from Vick's book and ask how much smaller could I go. To figure this out I reviewed many cottage sites and looked at dimensions being used. For example I studied MLD's Serenity shelter as well as shelters on Six Moon Designs and Tarptent's websites. My thanks to those guys for publishing dimensions.

Jamie

Edited by jshortt on 10/17/2009 20:06:21 MDT.