First DIY Tarp and thoughts

[Curmudgeon]

Mornin!
I just wanted to share my first DIY tarp that I finished up last night. It's the Asym design found over on diygearsupply (linky)

I bought all the materials a year or two ago and never got around to making it. I finally pulled everything back out of a tub in the basement and went to work. I wanted to start with the asym, since it's the smallest and easiest. Following a (semi) successful run at that, my plan is to now tackle the cat cut hex and winter hex with doors...eventually.

My material of choice was argon sil, and boy was it a bear to work with! It's a pain to lay out, a pain to cut, a pain to do a rolled hem, etc. My mother taught me to sew at a very young age, so I've always been comfortable around a sewing machine, but this taxed my skills quite a bit.

On to the interesting bits:
I tried to make this the lightest, cheapest, smallest-packing tarp I could.
-Made with argon sil (supposedly 1.06oz/yd^2, but I didn't confirm)
-Tie-out points made from 1/2" grosgrain and lineloc 3s
-Tie-out reinforcers are cut from 200d oxford nylon (less than 1ft^2 total material)
-Tie-out material is 3/16 flat nylon cord
-Ridgeline end points are just 1/2" grosgrain; I skipped on the D-rings

All the above weighs in at 166.5 grams. The stuff sack I made from scraps takes the total to 173 grams.

I strung it up in the back yard as tight as I was comfortable with, but it still had some bunching/wrinkling along the ridgeline. Is this inherent in a design like this? Is there something I could have/should have done in construction that would have allowed a tighter pitch? I don't have any good trees to try, so I pitched it with my hiking poles. Could this be the difference?

Overall, I give the seams and general construction a C; the hems aren't as straight and as small as I wanted, and the tie-out reinforcements didn't line up as well as I had wanted them to. To be honest, I'm more proud of the freehand stuff sack I made than the whole tarp.

Anyone care to weigh in on size vs compressability vs weight? This is weigh (ha!) lighter than my current tarp, and I'm in uncharted territory.

Pictures:
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[geneaut]

My asymmetric tarp I cut from a larger polytarp has the same folds in it that yours does so I expect it's a feature of asymmetric tarps.

[boulderv7]

That looks great. Yes, I think the folds in the asym are a result of not having a dedicated ridgeline. My hennesy hammock's asym tarp was the same way.

[Monkeyboy42]

That looks great. Yes, I think the folds in the asym are a result of not having a dedicated ridgeline. My hennesy hammock's asym tarp was the same way.

My suspicion is that it's actually caused by the fabric stretching on the bias. My Noah 12 hung in a diamond (for which it's designed) does not wrinkle on the ridge. If I hang it Aframe it gets a wrinkly ridge. The opposite happens with my silpoly 11x10. In an Afrane ridge is tight. If I hang asymmetric which stretches the bias it gets a wrinkly bias.

[brohawk]

Very cool!.. Love the line loc 3's. Having a hard time reading the weight though

[FJRpilot]

I think it looks great, congratulations. I think that quite a few of those wrinkles will come out once you string it between trees... Maybe consider s CRL... That will help...

[Curmudgeon]

Thanks for the kind words, everyone! I'm not sure how often I'll use it out in the wild, since I like a little more protection overhead. It was really just to see if I could follow the directions well enough to make a tarp.

This will be perfect for day hikes or even a nice shade spot at the beach.