Best Tent Fabrics? w/ Dan Durston 

🇨🇦 loves Justin and Dan Durston!!!

This show is super Canadian.

What a great video! Thanks Justin for setting this utube up with Dan Durston and helping us better understand the thinking behind the design of Dans great products. I own Durston tents and backpacks because of Dans commitment to quality and functional design at a reasonable cost (as well as his personal interaction with others in social media). Great products, great person! Great utube Justin!

I recently purchased the Durston X-Mid 1 person tent (polyester version). I'm very happy with it.

Awesome! Just bought an X-Mid 1 a couple hours ago. Looks like a great value and Dan seems like such a chill dude. Interesting hearing from him and very excited to test his tent out! 🤙🏼

this was so sick, so much jargon flying around, really made it easy to understand and Dans enthusiasm is infectious!

Dan's the best! The Gearheads group is such a fun place, too! Learned a ton here, thanks, Justin!

This was great! It was very cool getting into the nitty gritty details of threads, fibers, fabrics and coatings. Thanks Dan & Justin!

New episodes will be released on RU-vid Sunday morning and then to Spotify, iTunes, and other podcast platforms on Monday mornings. I hope you enjoy them! Spotify: open.spotify.com/show/4Rgn5EwoMGCJO43DhByZIq Apple: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/gear-priority-with-justin-outdoors/id1680538219 Amazon: music.amazon.com/podcasts/d469a174-9d73-4cb7-aa52-2aa93107d99c/gear-priority-with-justin-outdoors Pocket Casts: pca.st/9tu2eesx

Loved this Jason! These deep dives into fabrics are fantastic.

Wow! Great info on tent fabrics. Learned a lot. Thx

Loved that deep dive. Thanks

I'm designing a viking tent and now I'm obsessed with it. So much fun just going through the process.

Wish I would've been here for this live. Gossamer Gears use of robic and silnylons is why they are my favorite cottage company. 10D sil/pu tents and tarps equate to very low weights at relatively low prices. A 17oz 1P tent ... A 7 oz catcut 10-9 x 7 tarp. Great Lasts longer than DCF according to many anecdotal accounts. 30D, 70D, other Deniers of robic nylon make for very lightweight, decently durable for most backpackers, and low cost. The new GG Fastpack looks amazing. One can always do some trimming for lower weight. DWR is definitely not the greatest for water shedding, but a cheap plastic pack cover that weighs nothing sheds the rain for me. Dan taught me about sil/pu patch ability over sil/sil

Great start with the Podcast, Justin!

Looking forward to seeing what he comes up with next!

Excellent information

nice video Dan. Please make a sil poly version of the pro tent! I want the regular xmid 1 without the extra 4-6 ounces of bug netting to make it single wall. Makes it easier to whipe down condensation and shaves some weight, while making it more liveable inside.

sling fin does a bunch of uv stuff with the fabric, coatings, and such

This was fantastic!

Interesting video. Didn't know that polyester had been considered an inferior fabric to nylon. Fjällräven, a Swedish brand made all their top-of-the-line tents with polyester fabric in the mid- late seventies (and maybe later too). Don't know when they switched but use nylon now as far as I know, maybe except for one model. At the time most other manufacturers used nylon and some claimed that was stronger fabrics, but the polyester was clearly strong enough for some really harsh conditions (I've tried) and the sag free polyester fabric was a real bonus in a climate with lots of rain.

lol my girlfriend is such a hater she just walked by and was like “are you still listening to those guys talk about tents!?” I’m like “no we haven’t got into full tents right now the groundwork of fibers has been laid and we are moving into coatings..” I love it! I love gear, I love fabrics and techy materials I love going deep on these topics and plus who is cooler than Dan Durston?

I am soon hopefully gonna try out my solid 2p i bought early this winter:)

Nice deep talk.

How does this not have more views?

Super interview with a super person. Learned a bunch and am much smarter fro watching this video. Just ordered an X-Mid 2 ad Durston's Z-Flick tent poles .... (motorcycle camping)

Dan the man!

Curious about thoughts on dutchware gear patent pending fully bonded sil poly fabric eliminating the need for any kind of seam tape or seam sealant. It also turns the seam from the weakest part of the fabric into the strongest part of the fabric. My understanding is because of the bonding process they can use thinner denier sil poly without compromising the integrity of the fabric by not putting any holes through stitching. This seems like a game changer for durability and waterproofness.

The tent fabric I always wanted is like the one used in the Siesta 2 tent. That one blocks out the sun, so that you can legit have a zero day on trail without the sun baking you in the tent plus you have real cool temps and a lot more darkness, so it’s more like a cave. You can legit take a mid day siesta, enjoy the views from within the tent without overheating from the sun, that’s very relaxing. The Siesta 2 weighed 2 kilograms, but if designed as a trekking pole tent, it could be half that.

Chatting with a consultant designer with over 200 big-brand lightweight shelters to his name, he says that the finishing is critical and can vary more from batch to batch than the difference between, say nylon 6.6 and polyester. Having said that, for backpacking tents he's a big proponent of silpoly because of the stretch and sag performance. He has access to the repair departments of many of the big brands and says that the minor differences in strength are a non-issue provided the stress points are properly designed. Neither will survive rubbing against a rock or branch. Plus silpoly has better UV resistance so after a few weeks in the field it's very likely a toss-up.

Dan plz make a 2p double walled dyneema tent!

Nice talk. Some related thoughts and points: Super small diameter UHMWPE fibers (Dyneema, Spectra, Ultra, etc) are very hard and expensive to make (currently). I think 50D is the smallest that I've seen in commercially available threads and fabrics. Even if you could make them 10D or the like, how are you going to waterproof it, as nothing sticks to this super low energy surface? You "MIGHT" be able to calender a thin UHMWPE film to the fibers, but you have to be very careful with heating UHMWPE fibers because they have a low melting temp and as soon as they get near that melting temp, the crystalline molecular chains that give these fibers so much strength, start to change back into amorphous structures. So the pressure and heat would have to be very carefully controlled and dialed in. I'm not even sure if this would be possible or not. You can plasma treat the outside surface of the fibers/fabric, but that is much easier for industry than individuals to do (and I think that DSM has or had a protected patent on it). There is a Japanese corporation called Teijin which is making high tenacity polyester fibers and fabrics now. Their polyester fibers are between 1.5 and 1.6 times stronger than regular grade polyester. They also mention that their polyester formulation already has higher UV resistance than regular polyester btw. You can even buy their polyester fabrics on their US distributor store, called ThinkEcoFabrics, under the labels PASMO (range from downproof/not very breathable, to very breathable) and PASMO Technoforce (very unbreathable)--they range from 12.50 to 15 dollars a yard (ranges from 50 to 60" or so wide). Unfortunately, none of these are coated with waterproof coatings. I actually contacted them not too long ago and asked (and suggested) if they ever thought about applying a pure silicone coating for waterproof fabrics? Interestingly, they said that they had recently talked about possibly doing just that. I really hope they move forward with that. Dye color really affects UV resistance of a fabric, besides the material and coatings. The darker the color and closer to deep black, the longer it will last in relation high UV exposure. For example, one time when going hot air ballooning, I asked the captain if he noticed a difference in how the nylon lasted in relation to colors. He said definitely, and that they have noticed that black and dark navy blue colored nylon balloons lasted the longest. I already had an inkling of this before I asked, and which is why I asked him that question (to see if there was any outside correlation/confirmation besides the sources I had already seen). I've looked a little into the 3M silicone tapes, and from what I've seen so far, they are definitely pricey. Maybe less so if one has business connections and has the ability to buy in bulk. It is not hard to mix a little silicone caulk with some naphtha (works better than mineral spirits) to thin it out and then apply with foam brush. I'm too impatient to sit around and wait for pure silicone coated Pasmo fabrics to come to the market, so I recently hit on a plan. I bought the highest quality silicone coated polyester fabric I could find (at ExtremTextil), and enough to make a large tarp. I also bought some 1" wide UHMWPE webbing that weighs 1.7 grams/.06 ounces per foot. I'm going to sew the webbing over the tarp fabric in an X, +, and [] pattern. The tie outs will be directly connected to the webbing and not to the tarp fabric--hence the webbing will take most of the force of wind etc. This is 1000lb rated webbing (I might actually use polyester grosgrain for the [] part of it though. The UHMWPE webbing is on the expensive side, whereas polyester grosgrain is quite inexpensive). Yes, way overkill for most purposes, but I want it to last a very long time, among other issues/factors I'm not going to mention here. I plan on probably adding some extra silicone coating to the top as well, to increase the UV resistance and waterproofing some more (the fabric is dark olive which will handle UV decently anyways). I might even throw in some nano or micronized titanium or zinc oxide into the thinned silicone before I apply (but nano particle forms are quite expensive, so maybe not). Again, I want it to last a very long time and be very durable for "relatively low weight" (unfortunately, all of these extras will add some ounces to the finished product). This won't be my everyday, go to tarp/shelter for my UL backpacking trips though.

Great episode! Excited for this podcast

Ever thought about using the Ultra fabrics (200/400) as a material for your tent?

And this right here is why Durston Gear is a cult. Well done both of you.

There is a phrase from HowNot2 that I think applies to a lot of outdoors gear. They test climbing gear and label it "Super good enough". Basically strong enough you don't have to care about it in the real world. I think tent fabric strength is like that. Unless you are camping in a tornado, your will to stay outside is likely to fail before the fabric. Or the tent will pull out the ground and blow away with all your stuff in it. How many stories have you ever heard of a tent fabric ripping?

My boyfriend found sage (technically “pistachio”) material for his 3D printer and I’m about to get some awesome Durston sage bits and bobs ;)

Please someone tell me , can you spray silicone spray on these tents without damaging them???!!!

One of these years lol

Radioactive spiders?

Anyone want to trade a Kawka55 pack, for a Kawka40? I bought the 40, before realizing a larger one was coming. The 40 hasn’t left the house. My short trips, I use a heavier pack deliberately. To train for longer heavier loads. Vancouver. Bill.

Nylon: 1938 PTFE: 1938 Polyester: 1958 BoPET: 1958 UHMWPE: 1962 Tyvek: 1967 ePTFE: 1969 Dyneema (DCF) = Ultra High Molecular Weight Polyethylene (UHMWPE) fibers laminated in Mylar (BoPET - biaxially oriented polyethylene terephthalate), both of which are based on polyesters. 🤓 That means 54 years since any major fiber breakthroughs commercially and at scale. ePTFE is basically "Gore-Tex", normal PTFE is basically Teflon, the main sources of PFAS "forever chemicals". PTFE has a major advantage in that its 100% UV proof, but the environmental cost is high. Has anyone tried Tyvek 1025D for a tent material? Its technically waterproof, but breathable, the weight at 1.25oz (42.5 GSM) isn't terrible either. Plus its recyclable no?

Seemed like Dan was hinting that the textile factories weaving machines can’t handle such a thin fiber as Dyneema

fix your audio bro, either its not that clear or its just too weak for the video and i've already maxed my sounds settings already