Hi all,
Here's my take on a cuben tarp and some tips on how to apply tape on it.
I wanted a simple large rectangle tarp (about 3m x 2.7m) for it can be setup in various ways also for ground dwelling. I also wanted to try making it entirely of cuben.
So, first I grabbed my three meter pieces of 27g/m2 cuben and trimmed and straightened all the edges.
Next I aligned the sheets on top of each other and tried applying the 3M adhesive tape to the ridgeline in short pieces. That was awful. I had the tape pieces stuck everywhere except the ridgeline. So I had to invent the cuben tape applicator:
As you can see it consists of hitech components such as a 50 year old stool and a pipe from a vacuum cleaner.
Anyway, with the applicator things started progressing really well and the ridgeline was taped in no time.
I used two strips of tape 1cm each for the ridgeline. After applying the tapes on one of the sheets, it was easy to turn over the taped part against the other sheet and glue them together:
I repeated a similar taping process for all the edges but only used one strip of the tape for those.
Next it was time to add the guyline loops. This needed some thinking over as I wanted to make them from cuben, too. I ended up with a design where I sandwiched the cuben sheet between two strips of heavier duty 49g/m2 cuben strips.
I started mass producing one-sided (cuben on the other side, adhesive tape on the other) cuben tape strips:
Six 2cm wide strips of one-sided heavy-duty tape ready for cutting:
Completed strips each 30cm long:
Two strips are needed for one connection point, a "V" and a straight one:
Here's how the "V" strip goes, note that the top side of the strip goes _under_ the sheet and vice versa:
First attach one side of the V-strip:
Then flip over the sheet and work the other end:
...until you reach this stage (the brown protective paper has been trimmed a bit):
Here's where the second strip goes:
Peeling of the brown paper before the strips meet:
Sheet again flipped over:
Almost finished:
Finished:
Taping one loop from both sides like this takes about five minutes once you get the hang of it.
Test run:
I did some stress testing on a smaller piece of cuben before making the tarp and the V-sandwich design seemed to be pretty strong. I was also concerned how the 2cm wide strip of cuben would handle a thin guyline, but it seemed to do just fine. It could withstand a lot of pulling or heavy tugging from all directions without any visible permanent damage. The cuben loop does get a bit deformed temporarily where it meets the guyline:
This was my first project with cuben and I'm pretty satisfied with the results so far.
Today we had some pretty strong winds so I was under the tarp checking out how it handles the situation. The tarp handled the wind just fine, but I was interrupted by a beast who walked under the tarp and looked a bit peckish so I served her some bread and water to dip the bread in:
The first version of my hammock kit is now complete. In addition to the new tarp I have a simple gathered end hammock, a bugsock, dynaglide whoopie slings and a pair of simple treehuggers. All of these are DIY and I it was fun making them! The weight of this lot incl. the tarp is probably somewhere around 600 grams. DIY quilts are way out of my league still, so I got a nice set from Hammock Gear instead...
Cheers!
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