fabric help?

[SuperTramp]

so tonight my wife comes home from wallyworld with a present for me.2 sample yards of fabric for 1.50 per/yd! she said there is a whole bolt there in the clearance rack and if and if i like it i can go and buy a whole whack and she will make whatever i want,now that said i have no idea what it is and neither do they.it is a light nylon material but on the back side it feels like a rubbery shiny coating-it holds water and does not seem to penetrate at all-any ideas or has anyone bought a waterproof nylon at Walmart?i'm thinking tarps for now or light pack or tarptent or drybags or........

[Ramblinrev]

so tonight my wife comes home from wallyworld with a present for me.2 sample yards of fabric for 1.50 per/yd! she said there is a whole bolt there in the clearance rack and if and if i like it i can go and buy a whole whack and she will make whatever i want,now that said i have no idea what it is and neither do they.it is a light nylon material but on the back side it feels like a rubbery shiny coating-it holds water and does not seem to penetrate at all-any ideas or has anyone bought a waterproof nylon at Walmart?i'm thinking tarps for now or light pack or tarptent or drybags or........

It is coated nylon. The rubbery coating you feel is exactly that. Although it may not be rubber. More likely polyurathane. While there are those who say PU Nylon is too heavy for tarps that is a matter of personal preference vs cost vs availability. _I_ would probably go ahead and make a tarp or two if the fabric is at least 60" wide. Coated nylon is not a durable as silnyl in that the coating can wear off or peel. But @$1.50/yd it is not as expensive either.

[Grinder]

I'm going to add a comment here about a commonly available wally world fabric: the grey ripstop that shows up all the time (at least it did before MY wally worlds dropped the fabric department)

I bought quite a bit a year or two back and was then told by the experts that it wasn't sil nylon since it didn't "crinkle" and therefore was unacceptable as a tarp or other rain stopper applications.

Recently, in Franklin, NC, at the hikers bash, a young guy exhibited his DIY tarp tent he had made from this very material. Like myself, he tested it with the water leak test over night and it passed.

He then made the tarp tent (to Ben's on line directions) and had been through several hard rainstorms leak free.

For what it's worth. I don't want to argue about it. Just reporting

[Take-a-knee]

I'm going to add a comment here about a commonly available wally world fabric: the grey ripstop that shows up all the time (at least it did before MY wally worlds dropped the fabric department)

I bought quite a bit a year or two back and was then told by the experts that it wasn't sil nylon since it didn't "crinkle" and therefore was unacceptable as a tarp or other rain stopper applications.

Recently, in Franklin, NC, at the hikers bash, a young guy exhibited his DIY tarp tent he had made from this very material. Like myself, he tested it with the water leak test over night and it passed.

He then made the tarp tent (to Ben's on line directions) and had been through several hard rainstorms leak free.

For what it's worth. I don't want to argue about it. Just reporting

If you can drape that fabric down into a bucket and fill it half full of water, the gather up the edges and lift the "water ball" out of the bucket and it doesn't leak, it is most likely silnylon. If water starts "weeping" through the weave, but the fabric doesn't wet out, it is DWR.

[BOB1520]

I have also purchased some of the gray ripstop with the coating in it. It looks like 1.1 ripstop with a heavy DWR on it. I ended up buying the whole bolt (10yrds) for those potential projects. I did a waterproof test also, by taking a piece of the material and formed it into a megshift sack and poured water into it. the water didn't leak through at all.

I'm not sure if I would use it for a tarp since it seem a bit tooo thin, to me,to use it for that. Also my bolt was 48 inches wide and not 60.

But on the other hand @ $1.50/yd it's worth the try. Small investment for an experiment. If it works!! then you have a $15 tarp (not including labor of course)

[Coffee]

I think we need an article on this one. Seems to come up every once and a while.

There is a really easy way to tell not envoling burning, blowing, water, or anything that gets you strange looks.

Ripstop - has the box pattern we all love
untreated/uncoated - it is not shinny, frays, if you look real close it is rough. You can even see the very tiney holes in it (great for hammocks, not waterproof)
treated/coated - it is shinney, usually 1 side more than the other, it frays, the surface is smooth (great for quilts and hammock socks, water resistant and breathable)
sil - does not fray, is shinney, is smooth (great for tarps, is waterproof)

1.1 thin and can kind of see light through
1.9 thicker and hard to see through

That's how I tell and it hasn't let me down. Poly versus nylon is a little harder. Most of what you find is nylon. I think poly stretches a little more, but not sure. I only have a little bit.

Walmart seems to have a ton of cheap taffeta. OK for testing, but doesn't hold up over time.

[Grinder]

I just backtracked and did the water test on an old piece of the grey material I had left. It leaked like a sieve!! and the edge was clearly a bit frayed.

Either the kid had different material or lied or treated it. It sure looked like my grey sample.

Sorry for the confusion


sigh!

It's hard sometimes.

Grinder

[Ramblinrev]

Silnylon does not make good water bags because it does weep through. There are numerous threads on the forum talking about how the silnylon will tolerate pressure up to a certain point and then begin to weep. Extremely heavy, large raindrops can exceed that pressure in the very localized areas resulting in a level of weeping. However, the weight penalty of the coated nylon is so great as to have certain folks opt for the small amount of weeping as opposed to the weight of a heavy coated fabric. DWR is water _resistant_ is means, as I understand it, prolonged exposure to water in the form of an all day torrential rain will exceed it's ability to keep you dry and will actually start to leak. Coated fabric has an extra layer of coating which seals the pores of the fabric completely making it not only waterproof and suitable for water buckets (eg) but also much heavier than the alternatives.

[SuperTramp]

wow-you guys have been busy-here's an update,on my way home tonight i stopped back into Walmart and bought up the rest-18yds for 27bucks(thats Canadian).it is not grey it is orange and yes it is 6ft.looking at it i see no box pattern but a tight weave and on one edge where the coating stops 1 inch short it is super frayed which is fine as i will cut it off and make an edge.it must be 1.9 as i cannot see through it at all and i tried again and it lets no water through so i'm kinda excited by my find and what i can make-thx

[fin]

wow-you guys have been busy-here's an update,on my way home tonight i stopped back into Walmart and bought up the rest-18yds for 27bucks(thats Canadian).it is not grey it is orange and yes it is 6ft.looking at it i see no box pattern but a tight weave and on one edge where the coating stops 1 inch short it is super frayed which is fine as i will cut it off and make an edge.it must be 1.9 as i cannot see through it at all and i tried again and it lets no water through so i'm kinda excited by my find and what i can make-thx

pics, please! It sounds like a treated nylon or poly. Def not ripstop with no grid.

I've found some real interesting fabrics at wallyworld.