You know you should be sleeping... (tarp,topcover,poncho,emergency shelter)

It's 10.30pm and you are playing with a paper mockup of a tarp. Worse, you are taking pictures of it. So I want to make a tarp for an asym hammock but I don't want it to be too big.

Basically I want it to be:
- Cover the hammock from rain (duh)
- Cover from wind
- Lighweight
- I don't get wet when I am not in my hammock/making food/can storage extra stuff under the tarp
- You can use it as a "topcover", or it's more of a topcover than tarp

Optional:
- Also works as a poncho
- emergency shelter incase my hammock happens to break for some reason and I can't spend the night in it.

I came up with a rectangular tarp with triangles attached to the foot end and to the opposite side of the top tie-out. Could this work? Has someone already made a tarp like this? I imagined I would only need 4 tie-outs with this and if planned well two of the tie-outs could use the asym tie-outs. The tarp itself would go to the ridgeline of the hammock (either a channel in the fabric for the cord or just 2-3 loops from fabric to keep it in place). Although this could be a problem because at the moment the ridgeline of my hammock is inside the hammock.

Then you could either keep it as a topcover, both sides close to the hammock. Or as a tarp both sides open (for this I probably couldn't use the asym tie-outs) or one side open, attaches with a soft shackle/biner to the tie-out. It is the tarpcover!

Here is some pictures I took and yes I am serious with this :D

Quote:

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Originally Posted by virkkte

It's 10.30pm and you are playing with a paper mockup of a tarp. Worse, you are taking pictures of it.

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Been there done that :lol: Not restricted to tarps, I have also done it with mockups of UQ's and hammocks. Origami is fun! :D

As for the tarp, looks kind of similar to the Ogee by Gargoyle, but slightly different. That has the triangles attached on the sides, and offers a variety of configurations. But don't let that stop you - love to see what you come up with.

Ah, I was searching for tarp ideas through google and stumbled upon Sqt Rock's Moonbow tarp. It looks like just what I am looking for, but I think I'll try this with the triangles first :D I like the idea that you can pitch the tarp against wind so you'll get better protection but that Moonbow looks like it protects pretty well. Maybe I need to make a 1:1 sized model from plastic bags.

Clear plastic drop cloths (painters use 'em) might be better for that. I recall WV was prototyping with them when he was working on a cuben tarp at one point.

They'll hold up for a couple of nights, so you can get a feel for what it'll be like to sleep under your tarp.

Just a thought.

Tämä lämmittää sydäntäni!
Worth not sleeping.....
Very nice.
Shug

I have been playing around with origami tarps today and I think I came up with a good draft of the tarp I want to make. The first one was just a rectangle with triangles added. Today I measured, counted and measured some more and drew a parallelogram with triangles added. Then I realised I that my calculations are okay, but I made a simple thing just way too complicated. Now I have 1,35m x 3m rectangle with an added triangle to the side.

At least I know I should be ordering about 6,5 meters of silnylon for this :D The width of the fabric is 1,5m and I tried a version that would be just made from 3mx1,5m piece, but I couldn't get enough coverage with it. I think I can still go smaller with the main fabric, because I cut a piece of paper to replicate Rock's Moonbow Tarp and the "doors" are just huge. I know I am still making this too complicated (why not and just use a rectangle like Rock), but I hope it will make a difference.

Next job is to figure out how to use this my ridgeline : p I still want to use this as a tarpcover, so the tarp will be just over the ridgeline (which is inside my hammock) and I'll have a small gap on the longer side of the tarp to reduce condensation because it's basically a silnylon topcover with one side longer than the other. I also saw a thread about single line suspension from BearChaser where he shows how you can setup your tarp and then just hook your hammock (http://www.hammockforums.net/forum/s...ad.php?t=32421). If I could only manage to do that with a single ridgeline. I have been thinking about making soft shackles for the ridgeline. And the poncho part is still a mystery to me :D Making simple things complicated since 1991.

edit. shug, hyvä että lämmittää edes jonkun sydäntä : p