Hi everyone. I am wondering about the cost/weight effectiveness of replacing an almost new 40D fly on my SD Clip Flashlight with one made of silny or cuben. One of the ideas I had to make the task easier was to just replace the fabric from the high hoop to the end and keep the original vestibules and zipper intact. Anyone know the weight of the 40D fabric? All comments and ideas welcome. I love the form and function of the tent and if putting $100-150 can get it into the 2.5 lb range that would be great. I also considered carbon poles but as these are DAC Featherlites I'm not sure how much weight savings I would get.

Gary

Edited by lakemcd on 09/18/2012 09:41:18 MDT.

As far as being cost-effective, you'll be paying nearly half of what several sub 1lb shelters cost...

Dan Durston made a cuben fly for an REI tent a few years ago. There's a thread here somewhere. He might have some specific insight about this kind of project.

Edit: here's the thread:

http://www.backpackinglight.com/cgi-bin/backpackinglight/forums/thread_display.html?forum_thread_id=34135&disable_pagination=1

Edited by saparisor on 09/18/2012 12:09:10 MDT.

the fabric on your current fly is probably between 2 and 2.5 oz/sq. yd.
So the MOST you would save with silnylon would be 1 oz/sq. yd., as it is about 1.3 to 1.4 net wt. you could save more with cuben, depending on whihc version of cuben you use, but it will be much harder to get a good fit that yields a tight pitch, as the cuben does not stretch appreciably and is thus much less forgiving in terms of fitting a fly to an existing tent.

Acording to the Fibraplex webiste, you can save about 6 oz by going to carbon poles.

> I also considered carbon poles but as these are DAC Featherlites I'm not sure
> how much weight savings I would get.
You would about halve the weight of the poles.

Cheers

Called Fibraplex today they said their poles are 60% of the weight of DAC Featherlites.