Pyramid Tent WIP

[gudspelr]

Kindo-
You’ve got to make the tent, mine was a great project and learning experience for me. It is all finished up, including seam sealing. I made a stuff sack for it and with some guy line in there, it all weighs 3 lbs. The only thing I wish I’d done differently (so far) is to have made the vent hoods a little longer. Once I got it pitched, I could see that the hoods (particularly one) could be insufficient in a meaningful storm with heavy wind.

As for the silicone idea, looks like you’ve got some good answers already. For me, I think the time of applying it and waiting to dry would be the killer. Also, I agree that it could gunk up your needle which turns into a huge pain. As my build continued on, I used pins and clamps less and less. I’d put a few here and there if I really needed “help” keeping a starting point how/where I wanted, but I found out that I could manage the material well enough by hand without any real issue.

I need to get more picture up and see if I can replace some of the others that photobuket hosed me on. I’m not sure I’ve got any specific to the peak reinforcement, but I’ll try and at least explain what I did. Warning, though-it’s VERY possible that it’s not the best way to go...

When the peak gets all sewn together with the wall panels, you end up with a mini mess. To start with, I pushed the peak material down towards the inside a bit so that things were pretty even and then ran several lines of stitching straight across, back and forth. I then cut off the very end above that point. It left a fairly “neat” appearance from the outside and I noticed it was very similar to what I’d seen on my buddy’s SL-5. I used a piece of heavier material I ordered from RSBTR (I’ll need to look up what it was) and cut a circle. Unfortunately, it had some costing that wasn’t the same as silpoly/silnylon and there’s not a great way to seal the two together. Otherwise, I’d planned on using seam sealer to “glue” it to the inside of the peak and later stitch it in. Instead, I put it in and stitched up each of the wall seams from the edge of the circle up towards the peak. I later went back and stitched just a bit in from the edge of the circle all the way around. I didn’t end up putting another piece on the outside-I wanted the seam sealer to be sure and take well. Guessing a best practice kind of thing would be to have planned better and used some material that would have been compatible with the silicone seam sealer and glue them on both inside and out, then stitch afterwards.

Hope that helps you out. I’m currently building my cylinder stove and plan to get it burned in inside the tent this weekend. Guess we’ll see how well it all goes.


Jeremy

 

[Kindo]

Kindo-
You’ve got to make the tent, mine was a great project and learning experience for me. It is all finished up, including seam sealing. I made a stuff sack for it and with some guy line in there, it all weighs 3 lbs. The only thing I wish I’d done differently (so far) is to have made the vent hoods a little longer. Once I got it pitched, I could see that the hoods (particularly one) could be insufficient in a meaningful storm with heavy wind.

As for the silicone idea, looks like you’ve got some good answers already. For me, I think the time of applying it and waiting to dry would be the killer. Also, I agree that it could gunk up your needle which turns into a huge pain. As my build continued on, I used pins and clamps less and less. I’d put a few here and there if I really needed “help” keeping a starting point how/where I wanted, but I found out that I could manage the material well enough by hand without any real issue.

I need to get more picture up and see if I can replace some of the others that photobuket hosed me on. I’m not sure I’ve got any specific to the peak reinforcement, but I’ll try and at least explain what I did. Warning, though-it’s VERY possible that it’s not the best way to go...

When the peak gets all sewn together with the wall panels, you end up with a mini mess. To start with, I pushed the peak material down towards the inside a bit so that things were pretty even and then ran several lines of stitching straight across, back and forth. I then cut off the very end above that point. It left a fairly “neat” appearance from the outside and I noticed it was very similar to what I’d seen on my buddy’s SL-5. I used a piece of heavier material I ordered from RSBTR (I’ll need to look up what it was) and cut a circle. Unfortunately, it had some costing that wasn’t the same as silpoly/silnylon and there’s not a great way to seal the two together. Otherwise, I’d planned on using seam sealer to “glue” it to the inside of the peak and later stitch it in. Instead, I put it in and stitched up each of the wall seams from the edge of the circle up towards the peak. I later went back and stitched just a bit in from the edge of the circle all the way around. I didn’t end up putting another piece on the outside-I wanted the seam sealer to be sure and take well. Guessing a best practice kind of thing would be to have planned better and used some material that would have been compatible with the silicone seam sealer and glue them on both inside and out, then stitch afterwards.

Hope that helps you out. I’m currently building my cylinder stove and plan to get it burned in inside the tent this weekend. Guess we’ll see how well it all goes.


Jeremy

Oh, I'll definitely be doing it. I'm up in WI and just got back from out west a week or so ago and our fall is just getting rolling here, so this project may sit on the back-burner or at least I might just pick at it a bit here and there. I have another question though. I'm currently on the fence between making the pyramid design or going the Teepee route. In hindsight, do you have any thoughts on that? I see Beendare pursued some ideas that I've also kicked around in regards to a design so I may pick his brain too. Thanks!

 

[gudspelr]

It’s a good question-mid be the more circular tipi. I haven’t spent any nights in either, so take this all with a grain of salt...


From what I understand, a tipi can shed the wind better because of its shape. The mid has the big triangular sides that can really catch the wind, from what I understand. Although, I’ve heard some say that the circular footprint of the tipi can leave you with some more unusable space. With the square mid footprint, I can put someone on each wall and gear can fit in the corners. I ended up putting some guy out points on the walls of my mid, but I feel like the corner ones I added later (thanks to a suggestion from someone here) are what I really think help. I had it up in the back yard with some decent winds going. Enough that it wanted to flatten/bow in the lower portion of the wall. Having it staked down and just the corners guyed out kept the whole thing pretty darned stable.

I considered a sod skirt and briefly even thought about what it might look like to do something of a lower wall of about 18”. In the end, I wanted to go with something that was more simple. And I think that was one of the big reasons I didn’t try the tipi. The mid was just so straight forward in regards to figuring out the pieces. Roll out the material and cut it to the length of the wall (from base to peak height + seam allowance). Then, mark it diagonally from corner to corner and cut. (If your material has a different finish on the two sides, alternate which side is up as you make the diagonal cuts, this will allow you to have all the same sides showing inside and out-I cut them all and stacked them so I knew everything was going to work.) You now place one piece down with another so both vertical edges of the two right triangles are touching. Sew it together and that’s one wall. There’s no fabric waste and your square footprint is easy to figure out-it’s basically twice the width of your fabric, minus seam allowances.

I think tipis are pretty cool, but I just didn’t want to figure out all the angles, measurements, and cuts to go into making one. Plus, I knew it would be more sewing because there are more panels. Basically, I’m a little lazy . Same thing behind not trying to add in a little vertical wall at the bottom. I tried to keep it all fairly simple and straightforward-what seemed to work for others. It also helped that a friend has an SL-5 that he let me take a look at for thoughts/ideas before I started my build.

Not sure if that helps you at all or not. But I hope it at least gives a little insight. I burned my stove in today and I have to say-I’m finding myself a little bewildered that in a week, I’ll be on the mountain with my boy and we’ll be sleeping in quilts I made, inside a tent I made, staying warm and a stove I made. It’s a little surreal. I can’t wait to see what you come up with. Any reasonably decent idea I had was pretty well completely plagiarized.....


Jeremy

 

[gudspelr]

I think I finally got some of the picture thing figured out with Imgur, so I wanted to add in some more pictures. Hopefully, they might help some others thinking about a project like this.

Some of the reinforcing patches for the grosgrain loop/stake out points:






Double stitching the zipper in. I used a zipper foot for the line of stitching right next to the zipper so I could get in close:




Here are some shots of how I ended up doing the vents with the netting:




Sew it in, then cut out the outer wall covering it, roll that material under and stitch:




I also sewed up my own stove jack and just winged it. Not sure it's the prettiest out there, but so far, it's functional:




I initially had my guy out points on the wall panels just off from the corner seams. It didn't work well.... You can kind of see in this picture that with that design, it causes the corners to be pulled into the interior of the tent, which sucked. I ended up sewing loops onto the corners as others have suggested and found that to be really helpful for retaining interior space.




Here's a shot with a pad, stove, and some other odds and ends to give some perspective of size:






Jeremy

 

[gudspelr]

And last of all, a shot in the great outdoors. My son shot his dee about a half mile from the tent last fall. It got COLD and wow was it windy that night....the tent held up well and kept us dry.




Thanks to everyone who helped me along the way!

Jeremy