High Sierra Topix

As some of us know, cuben fiber material has seen its way into lots of shelters and other gear over the last ten years. We could either purchase a commercial (cottage industry) product like a shelter, or else purchase the raw material and assemble something with our own hands.

This has suddenly changed. Most or all of the standard vendors have ended their sale of the raw material. Apparently the finished products are still available. I wonder why this happened, and I wonder what the solution is.

I used to purchase 4-6 yards of it for each new project, but it seems like this has ended.

Easy enough to buy in Europe....

...and the US

https://ripstopbytheroll.com/collection ... ite-fabric

Excellent. Thanks.

Zpacks is one vendor still selling it as "Dyneema Composite", see http://zpacks.com/materials/waterproof-fabric.shtml . I prefer the gridstop fabric myself. My favorite tailor made me a couple of nice stuff sacks out of gridstop. Seems to be sweet material and (I'm told) it is not hard to work with.

Or not. Zpacks doesn't sell anything on that linked page.

They stopped selling materials.

Ripstop or Thruhiker prob best US bets?

I spoke to the CEO at Zpacks recently. He told me that people were buying their tents, reverse engineering them, and then buying raw fabric to make knock-offs that they then sold at lower prices. He said by not selling the raw fabric it was making it harder for those guys.

Of course you can still buy Dyneema Composite elsewhere so I'm not convinced their strategy makes much sense.

longri wrote: Of course you can still buy Dyneema Composite elsewhere so I'm not convinced their strategy makes much sense.

Yes, I just purchased a piece from Ripstop by the Roll. I placed the order very late Monday night. They shipped it on Tuesday, and I received it on Thursday. When I opened the package, I thought that it must be empty. The cuben fiber weighs so little that it had me fooled.

I was fashioning a rain door to supplement the net door on my cuben fiber shelter. Now, with all of the mosquito net and pull-out cords, it totals 9.8 ounces. When I add the internal ground sheet and external titanium stakes, it totals 14.75 ounces. I am not counting the trekking pole, since its primary use is to aid walking.

Many ultralightweight backpackers stress the weight reduction of their heaviest three or four big items. My shelter is now under one pound. My sleeping bag is under one pound. My backpack is under one pound. The butane burner in my cook gear is less than one ounce.

Now I am all ready for summer.