Here are some pics of my latest project. It is a caternary cuben tarp made from 3 yards of .51 oz cuben. It tapers slightly from front to back (+12" wider in front). The ridgeline is bonded with Hysol U-09FL. The finshed weight including guy lines was 2.9 oz. I hope to have detailed instructions on how to reproduce the tarp on my website by the weekend.

With some guidance from Steve Evans this project was much easier than I thought. My thanks goes to Steve for his time and especially his youtube video.

Jamie

Edited by jshortt on 10/05/2011 20:54:47 MDT.

as usual jamie great job

Dimensions?

Looks great!

The finished dimensions are 106” x 57” x 45”. The sides are cut shorter 3" at the front and 1" at the rear. This makes the corners closer to 90 degrees.


Jamie

Looks fantastic Jamie!
At that weight, you're going to have to put some rocks on it to keep it down, lol.

What bonding agents/tapes did you use?

Edited by mad777 on 10/05/2011 21:04:03 MDT.

I did all the bonding with Hysol U-09FL. This included the ridgeline and all 8 reinforcement patches. I was a bit worried at first since after several hours it was still movable, but after 24 hours the bond was stronger than I could pull. I simply overlapped the ridgeline by 1" and glued in between. Not sure if a full 1" over lap was needed, but the end result was real solid.

I was a bit skeptical of people saying Cuben is much easier to work with than silnylon. But once I got the bonding thing down I have to agree. Being able to see through it, cut with a simple exacto knife and the fact that it folds and holds the fold makes it real nice to use. It was far easier to hem the tarp edge than a silnylon tarp is to hem.

Jamie

Very nice looking tarp!

I finished the instruction set with details on how to construct the tarp. I put them on my site. Here is a link....

LytW8_Cuben_Cat_Tarp


Jamie

The Mini Tent is my cup of tea...innovative modernization of the classic "orange" tube. Any chance of getting instructions/pattern on that one?

Your website is the bomb.

ernie the eyeball

askernie@yahoo.com

Jamie,
The cat tarp looks great. I didn't realize that you had a website, but you've done a nice job sharing what knowledge you've picked up over the years.
Tom

I put this out there not so much for this project but to foster general awareness. Sewing grosgrain is way heavy compared to bonding cuben patches/tie outs. Picture an hourglass shape folded in half and bonded top and bottom. Triple reinforced patch area + tie out for essentially 0.0 grams. Times 8 or 12 that starts to add up.

Edited by ChemE on 10/09/2011 13:28:15 MDT.

Very impressed. I must say that it is inspirational.

Instead of sewing the bottom, is it feasible to bond the bottom? Or would the bonding agent be more heavy than simply sewing it? Also, I have heard that sewing weakens Cuben Fiber. Wouldn't bonding the edges maintain the strength?

Also an interesting idea about the Cuben bonded tie outs for the supports. What about the ridgeline tie outs, though? Would you insert a grommet like piece of hardware in the pieces of the fiber for your pole end to attach to?

Bob