This project was to put together a winter tarp for my hammock setup using the winter tarp kit from RBTR. I used Green Tea silnylon fabric, and added a few things beyond the kit such as buckles for door management. This kit is great, and seemed to work really well. The only gotchas I had included: 1. working with so much fabric at once, you really need a lot of space to line everything up. 2. Silnylon is pretty slippery to work with. 3. Sewing around the cat curves will cause some bunching with the rolled hem.
I followed the instructions really closely, the only big difference was that the kit came with pre-cut reinforcements. I actually cut my own door tie out reinforcements as I wanted them to be a little bigger to allow for storage of the shock cord. Steps as follows: 1. I spent a lot of time going over the PDF instructions before cutting anything to make sure I had it all correct in my head. There are spots in the instructions that do not provide exact measurements such as cutting the 6 inch door insteps, it is not clear how long to cut it in. So figuring it out based on the finished tarp measurements which say 44 inches for the door instep and then accounting for the half inch wide rolled hem, I ended up cutting the material for the door instep to 45 inches (which probably still wasn't exactly right...but close enough) 2. Measured and cut material (I had to move couches and rugs to accommodate all the material. 3. I did the cat cuts using the link to Xtrekker's Curve Calculator to get the measurements for cutting the curve. 3. Sewed ridge line, I went ahead and did the full flat felled/french seam. 4. Cut the reinforcements, I used the pre-cut ones for everything except the door tie outs where I did my own to make them a little bigger to stuff the shock cord. 5. Roll Hemmed the edges. The cat curves proved a little challenging and ran into some bunching in the material, but it turned out ok. 6. Attached all the rings minus the panels (which I think I will add for stability in the wind) 7. I ran a full ridgeline through the D rings, and then attached the D rings to the ridge line using prusik knots so that I could just adjust the tarp to center vs. trying to center the ridge line. 8. The door tie outs are done with shock cord vs. zingit tied to cord buckles (paracord bracelet buckles from hobby lobby). These connect to the guy line tie outs using prusik knots as well to be able to adjust the tension (see pic for closed doors) and for quick connecting. I switch male/female ends of the buckles on each side of the tarp to be able to clip open the doors easily as well (see pic for open doors) 9. I also added a cord lock to the shockcord (see open door pic) to tighten the shock cord when the doors are buckled open so that they don't flop around.
Required Materials:
RBTR Winter Tarp kit 10 yards of silnylon (Green tea) 12' 1/8 shock cord 50' guy line cord 4 paracord bracelet buckles 100% polyester thread 2 cord locks Lots of floor space
