A Tyvek kilt?

[DaFireMedic]

Good luck with your MYOG adventures, DaFireMedic. Sounds like you could have your own gear business. I'm excited about staying dry(er) in downpours with the kilt that's being made. I too will have a roll of Tyvek around the house to play with after this is done. Thanks for the encouragement.

Thanks Kristal, but my stuff isn't nearly as refined as what people would want to buy. I'm looking forward to seeing your kilt, as I had given some thought to this as well after seeing the Zpacks and MLD kilts.

DaFireMedic, thanksfor the specifics, well reasoned stuff always trumps less well reasoned stuff,I was off on the weights per yard, let me add one more possible benefit nowthat you mention it, sun resistance? I don't know that, but I do know nyloneventually dissolves in the sun, especially the light 30d stuff. I wasn'tactually referring to silnylon, cheapest that one is is around

5 a yard, and that's often very low quality with alow hydrostatic head, I was referring to the coated 1.9 oz70d, which weighs a bit more than tyvek housewrap based on your measurements,so that's good to see. 70d now can be gotten for 3, 4 a yard from diygearsupply, plus of courseshipping. Do you have any experience with the tyvek they use in for examplepriority mail envelopes? It's much thinner and lighter, and seems to bewaterproof, but that's all I know about it, I use that in little projects buthave no idea what it's called in terms of actually sourcing it. Now 1433 tyvekis another matter, that one you can literally see the holes in if you hold itup to the light, I would never use that one for anything. So I guess ahousewrap tvvek ground cover in fact would weigh less than a coated 70d, ataround 2.2 oz ayard, I take back what I said in that case, now I see why they use it for that.polycro stuff is nice but is very light, I have used it and don't mind it, butit's a pain in the wind.

Thanks Harold, and your reasoning is valid asnylon has characteristics that make it more suitable for most hiking typefunctions. I've never used any Tyvek except Homewrap andCommercial wrap. Commercial is a bit heavier still (obviously), I have a 10x10sheet that was given me. I've heard of people using the 1443 Tyvek (probablysimilar to the 1433 that you mentioned) that is used by kite hobbyists and its1/2 the weight of Homewrap from what I understand, but much less waterresistant.

As I said, your points about nylon are very valid,and I think that sewn nylon is stronger and I'd be more inclined to trust it inreally bad conditions than Tyvek, and although I've seen them, I'm notyet sold on a Tyvek backpack unless it were well reinforced. Tyvek is not rightfor every situation and there are some limitations. First, it delaminateseasily. Put a piece of duct tape on it, remove it, and you will take the toplayer of Tyvek with it. I've been able to work around this by using largerpatches for reinforcement on the surface, in other words spreading the forceover a larger surface area of Tyvek. This has worked well on the tie outs inthe middle of the tarp. You can see the patches in this photo from my 9x6 tarp:

http://i117.photobucket.com/albums/o...eoutsSmall.jpg

Also, it can tear if there's a weak spot on theedge, especially if you've washed the Tyvek to soften it. This can be workedaround by folding the edge over and gluing it to create a hem that is verydifficult to tear.
If you can work around these weaknesses, you cancome up with some pretty good stuff on the cheap, like this kilt project ofKristal's. My tarp works good, but I'm still planning to buy a cuben fiber tarpwhen I can afford it. Almost 1/4 the weight is hard to resist.

[Harald Hope]

Good information thanks. Wish I had the room to play with rolls of stuff, heh. By the way, how do you get paragraphs to show, every time I use them they all get munched up into one block of text? I didnt' know about the delamination issue, though I do now understand why people use tyvek for ground covers. I think it was the 1443 I was referring to. If I remember that msds right, it really isn't water resistant at all, or if it was, the hydrostatic head rating was so low it made it essentially irrrelevant, it's just not made for that, and you can see why when you hold it up to the light, so using that in any application where water resistance is needed would be unwise. I could test that with a jar and a piece, but given you can actually see the light holes, it's not really a necessary test. By the way, some of the techniques you are using for your tyvek can also be used for polycro, I plan on trying that, it's also quite cheap, you can get it in rolls from ace hardware, quite strong, wndow insulation film is what it's known as, but it's about the same stuff that gossamer gear sells, more or less.

[JJJ]

Tyvek should be good prototyping material, but I' ve been thinking about a raincoat for my cotton Utilikilt. I'm thinking of a simple velcro-ed wrap of silnylon that could be stuffed in a back pocket.

[DaFireMedic]

By the way, how do you get paragraphs to show, every time I use them they all get munched up into one block of text?

Lol, I didn't really notice that. I typed it into MS Word first, then copied and pasted. I did that because there's no edit function on this forum so I wanted to get it somewhat grammatically correct before posting. I noticed that it messed with the spacing on many of the words when I pasted it in that last post though. It looked fine in Word.

Thanks for the tip on the polycryo, I may look for some at Ace.

[Harald Hope]

it's about $12 a 25 foot by 5 foot or so roll. The polycryo that is, at ACE. A lot of what you said about tyvek applies, doubling hems, using monster tape for tie outs, people are using nylon washers in the monster tape, extended past the edge, I may make a super light pack cover with a piece once I finish my pack using that method, only the ace nylon washers are too thick, I think I'll just cut my own out of empty plastic juice containers, the ones with flattish sides. Polycryo of course is missing the spectra / dynmeema mesh of cuben, but from what I've been told, it's actually a lot thicker than the stuff they use in cuben in general, so as long as you don't walk into sharp things, it should work.

[KristalB]

My Reversible Tyvek Rain Kilt is finished. I thought you'd like to see the final result. Before I leave on Monday, I hope to paint a Norway flag on the front flap of my kilt... so I can show my heritage and amazing taste in clothing all at the same time. Thanks for sharing my kilty adventures, Whiteblaze friends. HYOH

Tyvek Kilt complete.jpg

[leaftye]

I see pleats!! I love it.

[DaFireMedic]

Looks great Kristal! How much does it weigh?

[KristalB]

Looks great Kristal! How much does it weigh?

I don't have an ounce counting scale... but it weighs around the same as my Smartwool socks ... if that even helps.