Help on IDing Walmart Fabrics

[dasunt]

I'm going for my first DIYer hammock, and I want to make sure I'm doing everything correctly.

I went to Walmart's cheap fabric section and started looking at fabrics. (After all, if I'm going for my first hammock, I'm making it out of the cheap stuff.)

I found some greenish fabric, doesn't stretch like polyester or the cotton blends, doesn't feel like polyester or cotton, and is a little rough to the surface, with a criss-cross grid made from heavier threads. It looks similar to the ripstop nylon rain pants in the camping section, but far lighter weight. It is translucent. Very much so.

The fabric is around 60 - 72" wide, and I bought 7 yards of it. By my calculation, that's about 11 2/3 to 14 square yards.

That fabric weights about 13 ounces on a kitchen scale. By my calculation that's close to 1 oz/yard^2.

Two questions about the fabric.

1. Is this 1.1 oz/yard nylon?
2. Is this too light to make a hammock out of?

I also found a heavier fabric, not waterproof, but looks a little wind resistant (it is harder to blow through) that has the same criss-cross pattern that is similar to the ripstop. The color is a lighter brown, and it is much less translucent than the green fabric, but it is still slightly translucent.

I also have 7 yards of it, and this material appears to be 60" wide.

It weighs about 19 oz, or about 1.7 oz / yard^2.

3. Is it safe to assume that this is the 1.8 oz/yard fabric?

[fin]

Some helpful info from an old thread: Burn Test

It sounds like you made a good find, and your assumptions are logical. The untreated 1.1 and 1.7 nylon make their ways through the Walmart stores, just not mine anymore.

Either would be good for a hammock - depends on your weight, really. The olive sounds like great material for a sock or a topcover, as well. Or even a quilt, if you could figure out if it was downproof.

EDIT: Please, people - when you find info in a thread, tag the thread! It took me forever to find that burn test reference, and I tagged it immediately! Just go to the bottom of the page, click on "Edit Tags" and add key words for searching. I try to do this on all old threads that were created before the automatic tags were added.

[sclittlefield]

Agreed. Sounds like 1.1 and 1.7 w/DWR (is it slippery?).

Personally, I'd make it out of the 1.1, double layered.

[dasunt]

What do you mean by double-layered? A hammock with padding between the two layers?

[sclittlefield]

Nope. Well, yes. But no.

Basically I'm talking about making your hammock with two layers of fabric instead of one, ideally with openings between the layers so you can put a sleeping pad between the layers (that keeps it in place well, on top of the hammock and they can be a nuisance). So the layers are for padding, but only for removable padding.

Here's a pretty good layout plan for a double layer hammock from Risk. Make yours bigger, 10'x5' is more comfortable than the 9'x4'.

And, on second thought, I would make it with the 1.7oz fabric as the bottom layer and 1.1 as top layer.

[callook66]

Walmarts down here wont carry anything close to 1.1oz nylon... mostly because if doesnt have animal print.

[AlabamaDan]

Walmarts down here wont carry anything close to 1.1oz nylon... mostly because if doesnt have animal print.

Up here in Bhm either. Imagine if they made it in nascar!

[beaker]

Up here in Bhm either. Imagine if they made it in nascar!

You guys just need to look harder

You won't find it in every Walmart, and it won't be there everytime you go, but eventually you will find both coated and uncoated fabrics here in AL. I've found them while living in Montgomery, now in Birmingham and even one time down in Gulf Shores. In the 'Ham, try the one on Lakeshore. I've found some stuff there from time to time.

Sometimes you get lucky, sometimes you don't. If it's any consolation, I've only found the fabled "walmart silnylon" once.

[callook66]

... or camo for that matter.

[Fig]

My Walmart has some fine WWE prints. I was joking with my Dad about making him an Undertaker Underquilt.