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  1. #21
    Senior Member Preacha Man's Avatar
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    I like Cat Cuts, but that is because I have a wife that sews them for me. I can sew a silnylon tarp in about 15 minutes, but do not ask me to hem cat curves. If you are a beginner DIYer and do not want to mess up, go with no Curves. If you continue sewing and decide that your skill level is adequate to try curves, cut them out of your original tarp, no harm done. What ever works best for you at the moment
    Psalm 19:1-3 "The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork. Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night sheweth knowledge. There is no speech nor language, where their voice is not heard."

  2. #22
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    There are huge discussions on the tent pole versus math, like was said it doesn't matter.

    I made a pattern and used that on all the hex sides. I think it made a big difference in making all the sides looks the same.

    My tarp is a true hex, but my next tarp is not. I think that makes for too much lost area on the ends. Plus it made it a little wider than I needed. Mine is 12 feet on the ridgeline, if I remember correctly. I like a big tarp. I think my next one is going to be 12 feet long and 9 or ten feet wide. I am going to trace out 9 or 10 feet for the length of the side parrallel to the ground, and use the the remaining 2 or 3 feet to for the angle and the cat cut.

    Hard to describle but cuts down on the unusable ends.
    Is that too much to ask? Girls with frikkin' lasers on their heads?
    The hanger formly known as "hammock engineer".

  3. #23
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    Quote Originally Posted by Preacha Man View Post
    I like Cat Cuts, but that is because I have a wife that sews them for me. I can sew a silnylon tarp in about 15 minutes, but do not ask me to hem cat curves. If you are a beginner DIYer and do not want to mess up, go with no Curves. If you continue sewing and decide that your skill level is adequate to try curves, cut them out of your original tarp, no harm done. What ever works best for you at the moment
    I wouldn't do it for production, but I pin all the seams and hems. Not as worried about the pin holes as others. Takes a lot more time but comes out cleaner. Going to break the machine out soon again for the first time in a while. Going to take some advice from my grandma and iron the hems before I sew them. I did some experiementing with that before and it maes things come out a lot cleaner. More time still, but if it is only one not a big deal to spend all day on someting I am going to get years out of.
    Is that too much to ask? Girls with frikkin' lasers on their heads?
    The hanger formly known as "hammock engineer".

  4. #24
    Senior Member JohnSawyer's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by MikeN View Post
    I'm certain it would be easier to trace than a loose-hanging string - was just thinking of an alternate way to do it, that's all.
    I took a piece of butcher paper, hung a string and spraypainted over it... made a nice clean line... tracing seemed like too much work.

    Of course, I haven't made my cat-cut tarp (yet).
    "Do or do not, there is no try." -- Yoda


  5. #25
    Senior Member amac's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by BeansBaxter View Post
    Is your tarp silnylon or some other material?
    It's an 8x10 silnyl from Campmor.
    "Every minute outside ... is a good minute!" -> Calvin & Hobbes, 8/1/1993

  6. #26
    New Member
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    Quote Originally Posted by amac View Post
    It's an 8x10 silnyl from Campmor.
    From what I understand, sil benefits from cat-cuts more than other materials do. However, $80 seems like a potentially expensive experiment. Any chance you can try this on a smaller scale with some scrap sil?

  7. #27
    Member
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    This actually gets to the point of what I'm going to try.

    I actually bought enough sil for 2+ tarps (it was cheap... may as well get a bunch while I have the chance!) so here is my plan:

    I'm going to make a rectangle tarp -- straight-up, nothing fancy. I'll pitch it and see how it does (and see how the sewing sil goes on that one).

    If I don't like the way it pitches, I'll backtrack a bit and cut the cats into it and go from there.

    If that gets borked because of the conversion I have enough fabric to make the 'real thing' out of unused material.


    In a way, the best of both worlds with a failsafe backup.





    now..... does anyone know how to speed up UPS shiping that is already en route?????????????

  8. #28
    New Member
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    Quote Originally Posted by g0bez View Post
    I actually bought enough sil for 2+ tarps (it was cheap... may as well get a bunch while I have the chance!)
    Where'd you get the cheap inexpensive sil?

  9. #29

    Dove right in

    I wanted a tarp with doors, so I cat cut the sides and left the ends straight. Was a tip on an earlier thread. Made 2 tarps this way and they work fine and have a fairly tight pitch- not as tight as all edges cat would be.

    The way I decided on the depth of the cat was that I wanted to cut out 6 inch circles from the leftovers to use to make backing for pullouts. So I made the cat 7 inches deep at its maximum. Got 6-7 circles from each leftover, enough to triple layer the two pullout backings on each half.IMG_0607.JPG

    Note that this was the first hang and I've since learned how to make a tighter pitch.

  10. #30
    Senior Member Pipsissewa's Avatar
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    Coffee's grandma is right. IRON your seams before you sew them (no extra pin holes that way). Iron a small seam allowance all the way around once, "finger pressing" the seam before the iron hits it to get it just right. Then turn the raw edge in a second time and iron all the way around. Then sew. Good luck!!! WE WANT PICTURES WHEN YOU'RE DONE!!!!
    "Pips"
    Mountains have a dreamy way
    Of folding up a noisy day
    In quiet covers, cool and gray.

    ---Leigh Buckner Hanes

    Surely, God could have made a better way to sleep.

    Surely, God never did.

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