Seems like a couple years back it was a popular idea to add a footlong or so no-see-um skirt to the bottom hem of the Hex 3 / S3 shelters.

I haven't heard of anyone doing this mod in awhile - curious if it's effective. Anybody still using this setup? It's certainly the lightest and cheapest way to make the H3 bug proof, but if it's a hassle or has some fatal flaws it's obviously not worth it. Anyone care to sing its praises or recommend against it?

I had bearpawtents add a skirt to my utopia 2 and love it. they do a quality job and not as expensive as i thought.

http://www.bearpawtents.com/custom.html

Mesh skirts work surprisingly well with a minimal weight penalty. You will of course trap any bugs that are on the ground but this has not been a problem for me, and you can always light a mosquito coil to kill anything inside. Also, any flying bugs tend to fly to the top of a pyramid and leave you alone.

Main disadvantage would be if you use the hex in the snow as I've heard (no personal experience) that the snow will adhere to the netting and it can be a pain. Also, if you have a problem with crawling bugs like ants I don't think the netting is as effective.

I just glue my hex3 skirt on with silicone in spring, and tear it off again for the winter. Easy.

That's ingenious!

Hahaha, I clicked on this thread thinking that it was about someone's DIY conversion of a stock Hex 3/SL-3 to a multiple use shelter and rain kilt/skirt.

@Rog awesome idea! I'd been thinking of doing the same. I was thinking through different ways to attach bug netting to a mid that wouldn't be permanent, require sewing, or allow huge coverage gaps. Silicone as a temporary adhesive seemed like the best bet!

+1 on Bear Paw Tents, too. No experience with them for custom work, but pleased with what I purchased from them.

Edited by areichow on 11/03/2010 08:54:32 MDT.

Just had mine done this year from BearPaw. Great work, great price, fast turn-around time. I'm very happy with it.

I sewed a 16 inch noseeum skirt onto my 2010 SL3. It has 3/4" Velcro (loops because hooks will snag the netting) on the bottom for attaching a floor. Velcro also allows the netting to separate at the door zipper. I've tried it with the stock floor, and it works well. I intend to test it without a floor soon.

I shouldn't have used 3/4" Velcro. Narrower Velcro would suffice and weigh a little less. The bugs aren't going to be trying to pry the stuff open! ;-)

I have also added five 3 ft Triptease guylines to the additional stakeout loops. This allows for more and location-adjustable ventilation when select lines are staked out 2-3 ft away.

My SL3 tarp + guylines + netting + Velcro now weighs around 32 oz, up 7 oz from 25 oz.

The stock floor now weighs 21 oz, up 3 oz from 18 oz.

Matching the different lengths of the tarp perimeter with the floor perimeter was done by incrementally gathering the netting as I sewed on the Velcro. I ended up with around 12" extra on the floor (bottom) of the netting. This worked well because it allows me enough room to carefully enter or exit without unfastening the netting at all. The extra is carefully gathered and clipped with a few binder clips to seal it up. I also treated the netting and Velcro thoroughly with permethrin in case any ticks try to squeeze through gaps.

If you want a durable floor or to be able to leave the door open with bug protection, it's probably best, and almost a wash weight-wise, to just use the Golite nest.

Just curious whether or not people cover their peak vent with no-see-um as well.
I've got a Duomid and use the inner with it, but I don't mind a few bugs now and then, so seems like the perimeter netting would suffice.

Bigfoot, with all those trees around, you're not using your hammock???

Golite tipis have noseeum mesh in the peak vents.

"Bigfoot, with all those trees around, you're not using your hammock???"

Mary,
Two reasons why i did not:
#1--it got to 8 degrees that trip and that's too cold for ME to hammock comfortably.Snuggled with the dog this trip. YMMV.
#2--I went WAY above tree line the second and third nights and had no trees to use. The trip was in the Sisters.





BF

not gonna add anything really new to what's already been said but just tell my recent experience after I added the net skirt to my Hex3 last summer. I was asking around here about optimal length before I dit it.

It's very easy to do and it works reasonably well. It takes some care and fiddling to get a good seal, particularly when there's vegetation that insists on reopening the gap but that's a good compromise for the simplicity and light weight of the solution.

10" final length, sewn in. Considered making it removable but velcro was the only reasonable option I could think about and that comes with its own array of problems so I decided to sew it. I'll probably add some velcro tabs or some elastic loop to roll the skirt out before I use it in the snow.

Edited by inaki on 11/03/2010 17:45:42 MDT.

The other option I considered was ziploc. I tried to get a roll, but unless you want to buy a kilometer the suppliers don't seem interested in supplying 40' of the stuff. I was going to silicone that on, but then I thought, silicone will grip the net better than the ziploc plastic, and it's only a once a year 20 minute job. I put 16" wide net on a few inches up from the hem so it's less likely to wick windblown rain to my groundsheet.

Edited by tallbloke on 11/04/2010 02:37:13 MDT.

Thanks for all the replies! Lots of options here for sure. I would like to use it with the GoLite floor. 3 pound palace for 2 is pretty reasonable - especially for the wild weather protection it offers. A couple clarification questions:

1. On the sewn perimeter version, wouldn't putting it right on the hem of the tent make it impossible to clip in the floor? At least if the plan was to place the mesh on top of the interior floor it seems like that would be an issue. Workarounds?

2. Silicone "temporary" adhesive: Really interesting idea! I love the idea of removable. Isn't this a packing/stuffing mess though? Does it get goopy or soft in high heat? Seems like I'd be attaching/re-attaching constantly, but I'm not sure I know what I'm talking about, so actual experience is appreciated.

Thanks again for the ideas!

Hi Curt,
You don't need much. I fold the mesh back on itself over the silicone line as I pack the tent. Once silicone is cured it's grippy and tacky, but doesn't turn gloopy. Talking about it has given me an idea though. Next spring I'll attach the mesh the other way up, so it folds down over the cured silicon line. This will give an extra layer of mesh when I double it back in folding at the lower hem line while packing.

If I was attaching it to a floor as well, I'd put in some simple small bar tacks on the main tent seams to stop the mesh getting dragged off if the floor shifted or the wind flapped the mesh tight. Then I'd just cut these out for removal of the mesh over winter.

I tuck the skirt under the floor so no problem with clipping but then the problem is tensioning the floor out to the ground stakes :) which is also part of the fiddle factor I mentioned. The seal at these points gets less than ideal as you can imagine but no big deal unless the place is really infested with flying ones of the small kind.

you can also make a small hole in the skirt to pass the shock cord through. The skirt is not gonna take big tensions so a small hole should be no problem. It can also be re-inforced for a better finish.

Hi Rog,
Silicone sounds like a great idea. Would you have any photos of your siliconed set up? It would be great to have a look before I try this on my pacer tent this summer?

Cheers,
Jeremy.

"1. On the sewn perimeter version, wouldn't putting it right on the hem of the tent make it impossible to clip in the floor? At least if the plan was to place the mesh on top of the interior floor it seems like that would be an issue. Workarounds?"

If the netting is attached to the top of the bathtub floor on the outside, that puts the clips on the inside and the shock cord for the stakes on the outside. It all works well that way.

Edited by AndyF on 11/05/2010 18:43:47 MDT.