Coating nylon taffeta tent floor. Yes, I've seen Jim Wood's silicone/MS article.

[crazypete]

Good day fellow hikers. I've been feinding over gear for a few months now. After buying and field testing many many tents and tarps and poncho tents, I've settled on my little Eureka Zeus 2LE.

http://www.forestry-suppliers.com/product_pages/View_Catalog_Page.asp?mi=2329

It's light for a 2 man tent, got plenty of ventilation and does not have any condensation problems even at below freezing temperatures. Holds up like a champ in the rain, has bug netting, storage pockets and you can sit up inside cross legged with plenty of headroom and still have space to lay out all your gear. Nuff said.

Here's the thing though. I always wondered why the tent does not have a "real floor". The snake scale, heavy plastic floor that the "cheap" tents have and thought of reinforcing the floor. It's a decnt nylon taffeta but I could see sticks and stones breaking its bones in short order. I carry a heavy plastic sheet to protect the floor but then though "if the floor's not strong enough then why isnt it?"

Now I've already nikwaxxed it (heck, I nikwaxed the entire tent) but I've been looking to see if anyone's done any outside the box thinking here. I read jim wood's article on "a treatment for silnylon floors"

http://jwbasecamp.com/Articles/Silnylon1/index.html

but I've siliconed (RTV'ed) some car seats before and HATED the way it felt. You were glued to the surface. Way too much friction. I consider this my last option.

Has anyone experimented with anything else like canned automobile underside rubberizer or latex paint or something else to impart some STRENGTH so I could just pitch my tent as is and never have to bother with the groundcloth again.

Thanks for looking!

Pete

[saimyoji]

Have you considered a hammock? Then you wouldn't need a floor. :D

[guavaguy]

out of the box, you say???? How about attaching a sheet of tyvek on the outside underneath...use glue possibly.

[crazypete]

Sure!

Seeing a Hennesy Hammock in action was quite possible the one piece of gear that inspired me to convert from my car camping ways into a much more enlightened backpacker :D.

So yes, absolutely.

But then the practical implications set in. 3 things in particular.

1. Much harder/impossible to insulate a hammock for winter use. I've seen it done and you have to build a box out of closed cell foam to contain yourself. Too much extra bulk and work. I like my shelter to be 4 season.

2. I'd hate to spend a weather related zero day with no shelter but a hammock to hang out in. Not a big deal on the AT but up in the whites, you dont always have a lean-to nearby and you have to pitch where you can. You can only really lay in a hamock or try to huddle underneath it and that would get old quick.

3. Hammock folks have to do unfortunate things to their gear, which cant join them. Every time I ask a hammock'er where they put their packs, I get an answer along the lines of "I leave it laying on the ground" or "hang it in a tree". GASP! :eek: I love my pack too much to leave it laying around.

So, alas, I am "stuck" with a good tent or a bombproof tarp derivative. I love my little fabric fort.

"Come on in brotha. Got some nice grub cookin in here"

[crazypete]

out of the box, you say???? How about attaching a sheet of tyvek on the outside underneath...use glue possibly.

But then it's not the tent floor. It's a piece of tyvek glued to the floor. I remember a time when the ground had frozen overnight after I set up the tent and the groundsheet froze into the soil. I ended up ripping the cloth to pieces trying to get it out. In that same situation, the tyvek would simply rip loose. Plus, I doubt any glue will hold up to serious tentlike abuse in the long run.

[peanuts]

crazypete, where did you get "u need to build a box out of ccf pads??? inquiring hammockers want to know....:confused:

i hammock during late fall and winter months, never seen that:D

[Tipi Walter]

Have you considered a hammock? Then you wouldn't need a floor. :D

Hey! I know! Why not get a van and you could car camp inside the van and not have to worry about a tent!!

Thanks for completely changing the subject . . .

[crazypete]

crazypete, where did you get "u need to build a box out of ccf pads??? inquiring hammockers want to know....:confused:

i hammock during late fall and winter months, never seen that:D


:confused:
I've been looking for the link unsuccessfully but some kid built a contraption with a thermarest CC along the bottom and then a cut up closed cell pad(I think it was the just the "blue stuff") and layed them around the outer perimeter to pad the shoulders. It was really cool actually.

[The Cheat]

But then it's not the tent floor. It's a piece of tyvek glued to the floor. I remember a time when the ground had frozen overnight after I set up the tent and the groundsheet froze into the soil. I ended up ripping the cloth to pieces trying to get it out. In that same situation, the tyvek would simply rip loose. Plus, I doubt any glue will hold up to serious tentlike abuse in the long run.

But in the same situation wouldn't a tent floor get ruined?

[crazypete]

But in the same situation wouldn't a tent floor get ruined?

No the groundcloth actually had some soil get "around" it and clamp it down from above so the little fingers of frozen soil were what rended the material. It was also a crappy plastic sheet made of shower curtain material. Wasnt really a big loss to say the least.

I choose my campsites more wisely these days.

[Frolicking Dinosaurs]

Perhaps you could sew (not glue) a second layer of fabric or tyvek to the floor and then seal it really well with nikwax?

[burger]

I followed Jim Wood's instructions to coat the sil-nylon floor of my tarptent, and I'm incredibly glad that I did. Nothing slips, and the floor is so tough now that I think I could get away without a groundsheet (all I use is a sheet of plastic anyway). I've never noticed any problems with stickiness or tackiness, and I spent a lot of hot, sweaty nights in there.

But I'm wondering a few things: isn't this treatment specifically for sil-nylon? Would it even work on regular, non-siliconized nylon? And isn't the nylon that they use in tent floors heavier than the silnylon? I thought that was why this treatment was recommended--because the siliconized nylon is extra-thin (strong, but still thin).

[saimyoji]

Hey! I know! Why not get a van and you could car camp inside the van and not have to worry about a tent!!

Thanks for completely changing the subject . . .

Well, I think this reaction is proof that more smileys may be needed here at WB. Of course I was kidding, taking the wind out of the hammockers...who would eventually bring it up anyway. I predict it will be brought up again....:eek:

[Appalachian Tater]

I don't think of a $200 tent made of nylon as permanent. It's more like a pair of running shoes. You use it, it wears out, you get a new one.

[crazypete]

I've never noticed any problems with stickiness or tackiness, and I spent a lot of hot, sweaty nights in there.

Really now? Ok, maybe it's not as rubbery as I had thought. I had played with silicone for years in my grease monkey days and even used it as a crack sealer for a leather car seat. When dry, it was identical in color and I put a nice texture to it. The thing I encountered was it had so much friction that you could no longer slide into the car from the side.

But that was RTV and not sealing silicone. I guess I need to do some test strips to feel the differences for sure.

I sliced off 2 pieces for a distressed tent last night and nixwaked them. I'm going to try some:

1. rubberized vehicle undercoating
2. rtv
3. silicone raw
4. silocone diluted per instructions
5. This interesting clear silicone looking stuff called lexel.
6. I guess diluted lexel.

then knead them, jump up and down on them, try to slide them past the backpack wall and see who is still attached when the day is out.



But I'm wondering a few things: isn't this treatment specifically for sil-nylon? Would it even work on regular, non-siliconized nylon? And isn't the nylon that they use in tent floors heavier than the silnylon? I thought that was why this treatment was recommended--because the siliconized nylon is extra-thin (strong, but still thin).

Yup. Pretty sure nylon taffeta is a different creature than silnylon, which is why I asked. I guess we can make a new "how to reinforce a standard nylon floor"

But, my floor is "fabric" nylon , not "plastic" nylon. Basically, it looks and feels just like the tent walls: not something you want to be sitting on.

[crazypete]

I don't think of a $200 tent made of nylon as permanent. It's more like a pair of running shoes. You use it, it wears out, you get a new one.


Yeah...but wouldnt you be sentimental about the tent that served you across the length of the AT? I've only been out with this osprey atmos 65 pack a few times and I'm already sentimental about it.

The guy at the gear store recommended I switch to something bigger when I was having trouble loading this measly 32 pounds of gear(trail weight with 3D food/ 2L water). I hugged my pack like

"You're hurting it's feelings! Dont listen to him, he didnt mean it" :D:D LOL

Offtopic but that hump in the atmos facillitates some serious kung-fu skillz sometimes to load a rather reasonable amount of gear in. I have now mastered the atmos-fu and loaded it all in a really clever fasion by treating the pack as a big compression sack and letting the tent "flow around" my 4 main stuffsacks (food/thermarest/clothes/S-Bag) and it fills the "cracks".

But that big chunky groundcloth is now an unfortunate bulge in the side. Thats what lead me down the path of this thread. Hell, my $25 apline designs ranger tent is 3.5 pounds and has a HEAVY nylon bathtub floor.

[crazypete]

So the initial results are in.

With a nylon Taffeta floor, you dont need any mineral spirits. Materials will stick very well without additional assistance....even when the surface has already been Nikwaxxed.

The 3M silicone is less sticky than the RTV (rubberyest of the bunch). The lexel is looking great and is a bit less sticky than the silicone but is taking an eternity to dry and had a really strong chemically smell. The vehicle underside rubberizer dried in 20 mins and is not tacky at all. More like leather. It had the worst odors, even with a charcoal respirator on but shooting from the hip, the underside rubberizer seems to be the winner.

Now I need to let everything dry completely and then fold and stomp and stress test to see what actually remains attached.

Keep you all posted!

[crazypete]

So the lexal never quite dried. She's out. The other 3 dried in good time. Then I moved on to stress testing.

The automobile undercoat failed immediately since it wasnt meant to flex.

This left the silicone and the RTV silicone. They are roughly equal in tack but the RTV was significantly easier to spread so it is the winner.

However.... I noticed how damn heavy the relatively small test triangles were with the silicone attached. Compared to the "heavy" plastic groundcloth I carry, this is leadweight if I would coat the entire bottom of the tent.

I'm going to need to do another pair of test strips with superthin coatings and see if the situation improves or I might end up punting and just going with my groundcloth.

Such is the nature of empiricism: trial and error.