Lifespan & UV resistance of Cuben??

[Moondog55]

I have been reading the ultra light section.
I have been wondering about the trade-offs we make when making purchase decisions. Saving a kilos is a priority but saving grams may not be.
But very high on my personal agenda is value for money / longevity od my gear and making as small an environmental footprint as possible while keeping my comfort level as high as possible.
Where does Cuben fabric fit into this equation?
I know that all of my high tech cordage needs huge amounts of protection from abrasion and UV and wonder what the working life of Cuben is and whether or not using it is as environmentally sustainable

[wayno]

theres a discussion here , lack of abrasion resistance looks to be a bigger issue than UV resistance

http://www.backpackinglight.com/cgi-bin ... d_id=48742

[Franco]

There are many types of Cuben fabrics so it is almost like asking if a Ford car is any good for towing a boat.

But as for "value for money" they all have something in common : expensive to buy and expensive to turn into a product.
(not if DIY)
That is why you pay around twice as much to save 100-200g on the same shelter compared with silnylon.
For example a $215 , 20oz sil 2 person pyramid shelter becomes a 13.5 oz $415 shelter in Cuben.
To use an extreme example (since even their vice president called the shelter "crap") the Sierra Designs Mojo in nylon is 1.4kg ,RRP $400.
The same tent in Cuben ,Mojo UFO, is 880g but using CF poles instead, with the same poles it would be about 1100g, RRP $1800
Of course there are all sorts of other bits attached to a tent and those do influence the final weight, but that is somewhat similar with a backpack or a bivvy.
Note that to make the weight difference greater than it should be, many manufacturers also opt for lighter trimmings or a smaller size.
(CF poles vs Al poles..)

[ULWalkingPhil]

I read reports overseas if you leave your cuben tarps/shelters setup for long periods in the sun, it will eventually fail. This is true for most if not all fabrics in our harsh environment. Word is, cuben suppose to be more UV resistance than silnylon.

I minimize excessive sun exposure and if I am camping in one location for a day or longer, I tend to pack away my cuben shelter and setup later in the day, particularly if exposed to sunlight.

[ULWalkingPhil]

Fo me, cuben has advantages over silnylon not only for its weight savings. Its more waterproof and does not stretch when wet. I hate how silnylon stretches so much when wet, that you have to get up in the middle of the night to reset the tension on your shelter.

I know It don't take much to retension a shelter, i been doing this for many years with all my prior shelters, I started using Cuben, set once and forget. It is great to not have to fiddle around so much with my shelters.

My cuben tarp is 2 or 3 years old now. Made from .51 cuben, looks the same as the day I purchased it.

[Gusto]

According to Aarn designs, cuben fiber has a much lower environmental impact than other common camping fabrics.
I wonder if this would still be true if product longevity is considered.

[Mark F]

Working out the environmental footprint of most things is really quite hard - source or raw material, transport and conversion costs, and disposal. Need to consider energy, toxicity of byproducts and processing etc. Cuben used in appropriate places should last as long as other materials but, all things being equal, the cuben with only half the weight (0.51oz cuben vs 1.3oz silnyon) should have about half the environmental cost just on that basis.

[wayno]

i think the environmental cost of staying in a hotel or motel would far outstrip that of a trip spent under a cuben shelter... and the difference between using cuben or nylon would be relatively negligible in comparison to non bushwalking foms of accommodation and the carbon used to get to and from your bushwalk...

[Nuts]

Iv'e had some cuben patches (from a test) outside for a couple of years now. It has gone a bit chalky, perhaps a bit stiffer on the surface but it seems to have weathered ok.., the tape joins seem pretty stable:

file-1.jpg (155.92 KiB) Viewed 2708 times

file-3.jpg (102.13 KiB) Viewed 2707 times

PS.. they aren't still hanging in the tree, they lasted some time (weeks) before the glue let loose on one side (testing different glues)

[andrewa]

I was thinking that was odd having 2 buckets angling in your back yard for several yrs

A