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WebTruss™ Technology:

The web truss was designed to increase strength and to make the tent easier and faster to pitch.

Advantages of the Web Truss:

Strength
The Web Truss has a significantly smaller wind profile than tents equipped with clips or pole sleeves.
The Web Truss has tensioning straps at each sleeve opening that allows the Web truss to be tensioned.
Tensioning the Web truss significantly increases the strength of the tent.
Tents equipped with a Web truss can be pitched in much higher winds than traditional tents with pole sleeves or clips.

Ease of Pitch
All tent poles are the same length. This makes pitching the tent easier and faster.
All Web Truss sleeves are continuous which makes it easy for one person to pitch the tent.
All sleeve openings have a reflective strip that makes pitching the Web Truss at night much easier than traditional tents.

All plastic clips used on our tents are designed by SlingFin and custom made for us.
The Reverse Gate CobraClip™ is used at all pole intersections on the BFD and LFD.
The RidgeClip™ is a smaller general-purpose clip that is used to attach tent bodies to our Web Trusses on the START HOUSE, High & Mighty and OneUp.

Clip Details:
Reverse Gate Cobra Clip
Made of Acetyl which is the best choice of plastic for cold environments.
Stainless steel wire gate.
Reverse opening for ease of use and better leverage for locking the gate in the closed position. The term reverse gate is used to describe the direction the gate opens. On the Cobra Clip the gate opens outward away from the clip. This creates a larger opening which makes it easier to hook the clip around the tent poles.
Positive tension locking system so the gate will not open under tension.
Ergonomically designed for ease of use. This sounds like marketing BS but try using a Cobra Clip with gloves on and judge for yourself.

Ridge Clip
Made of Acetyl which is the best choice of plastic material for cold environments.
Stainless steel wire gate.
The gate opens inward like a carabiner.

ET70 Details:
Base Fabric. 70D nylon 66, made in the US. Nylon 66 fabrics are far superior to nylon 6 fabrics. They are more UR resistant and have higher tear and abrasion strengths. Because the dye is added to the coating and not to the fabric, ET70 is much stronger than comparable Denier fabrics. This allows our base fabric to go through less processing which makes the base fabric much stronger than most fabrics that go through additional finishing processes which weakens the fabric.

Titanium Dioxide Coating. Titanium Dioxide coatings are very UV resistant. This is especially important for tents that are pitched at high altitudes for long periods of time. Historically Titanium Dioxide coatings have been added to fabrics using paper transfer paper. The transfer paper is discarded after each use. SlingFin worked with Dimension Polyant to find a more environmentally friendly method of coating the fabric.
Now Dimension Polyant uses recyclable plastic films for applying the transfer coatings. The plastic film produces a shiny finish on the coating but that is a small price to pay as compared to wasting thousands of yards of transfer paper. The coatings are applied here in the US at the Dimension Polyant mill in Putnam Connecticut. All excess solvents are reused and the factory has a state of the art air filtration system so no harmful vapors are released into the atmosphere. ET70 is one of the most UV resistant fabrics ever made for the weight.

ET90 Details:
Please note that all tents made with ET90 are special order.
Base Fabric. 90D nylon 66, made in Germany. This is a high strength fabric produced for the sailing industry.
Titanium Dioxide Coating.
All details of the Titanium Dioxide coating for ET90 are the same as ET70.
If you have specific questions regarding SlingFin fabrics and coatings please contact us.

More fabric details will be added shortly.

All SlingFin tents come equipped with Easton Tent Poles.
All Easton tent poles (made of aluminum) are manufactured in Salt Lake City Utah. Easton Aluminum is world famous for producing some of the highest quality precision tubing in the world. Their 7075-T9 tube has long been standard equipment on high quality tents. Most of the industry is moving to less expensive 7001 T6 tubing (made in Korea and China) as standard equipment with their tents.

Easton 7075-T9 Expedition Series Tubing
Anodizing. Easton tent tube is hard anodized — This is important for abrasion resistance, UV protection and long term durability. Eco friendly dyes are used to anodize all Easton tent tube made of aluminum.
Tempering. Tempered to T9 hardness. Solution heat treated, artificially aged, and cold worked.
Ultimate Tensile Strength: 96,000 PSI
Yield Strength: 85,000 PSI. This is an important number as it relates to tent poles. Yield strength is defined as the stress at which a material begins to deform plastically. Beyond the yield point the tent tube will no longer fully recover to its original shape and the tube will become permanently distorted. Most T6 tent poles have a yield strength of around 50,000 PSI. That explains why T6 tube rarely remains straight for very long.
Inserts. All inserts are permanently bonded and individually press tested prior to shipment.
Tube diameter. Slingfin uses the following 7075-T9 tube diameters (measurements are outside diameter): .340", .351", .380", .490" and .625". Please note that Easton’s .625" tube is T6 and not T9. To compensate for the lower yield strength the .625" tube is made with a thicker wall.

Easton 7075-T9 Nanolite Tubing
Easton’s Nanolite tent tubing is 15% lighter than Easton’s Expedition Series tube. Easton achieves the weight savings by using thinner walled tubing. To maintain strength Nanolite tubing is made with slightly larger tube diameters as compared to the thicker wall tube used in Easton’s Expedition Series.

Expedition Series 7075-T9
High & Mighty - .390" Outside Diameter
START HOUSE - .490"
LFD - .490"
BFD - .490" & .625"

7075-T9 Nanolite
OneUp - .351"

Tents

Double needle flat felled seams (lockstitch). This is a very strong seam used to sew lightweight fabrics together. All our double needle lap felled seams are sewn with ¼” gauge double needle, needle feed sewing machines. Depending on the fabric either a mechanical puller is used or a second operator helps apply tension to the fabric as the fabric is being sewn. Ultralight fabrics and silicone coated fabrics, where both sides of the fabric have a silicone elastomer coating, are especially difficult to sew without puckering. That is why mechanical pullers or second operators are used.

Fabric Coatings. We use polyether, Titanium Dioxide or silicone elastomer coatings on our waterproof fabrics. We do not use PU (polyester urethane) coatings which are hydrophilic (absorb moisture) and start smelling like a locker room over time. PU is the appropriate acronym! PU coatings are not very durable and start deesterfying over time. It is rather unintuitive that (PU) waterproof coatings absorb moisture. That is why we use hydrophobic PE coatings instead of PU coatings. The story gets more complicated so rather than bore you to death we will add a link with more details as we build out the site.

Waterproof ratings. There are many tests to determine the waterproofness of fabrics. Mullen Burst tester, Suter tester and water column testing devices provide the most useful data that can use for comparative purposes. SlingFin provides waterproof data using the water column test method.

Titanium Dioxide bias binding. SlingFin is the first to use ET70 (titanium dioxide bias binding) on tent body and Web truss perimeters (BFD, LFD, High & Mighty and the START HOUSE). This is an important detail since nylon and polyester bias bindings will degrade much sooner than the rest of the tent and Web Truss which is made of ET70.

Nylon bias binding sewing. All seams sewn with bias binding are sewn with a double needle, needle feed sewing machine with a 1/8” needle gauge.

Perimeter reinforcement. We use ½” to 3/4" nylon or polyester grosgrain to reinforce the perimeter of tarps (Under the Influence) and flysheets (OneUp). This feature is applied to add strength and to reduce perimeter bias stretch. This is especially important on tarps which act as wings and often have tremendous forces applied to them in windy conditions.

Oversized YKK zippers. We use #10 YKK® zipper chain with double nickel coated zipper sliders on the doors of the BFD, LFD and START HOUSE.

Reinforced doors. The BFD, LFD and START HOUSE have two 900D reinforcements on the door frame and one large 900D reinforcement on the door itself.

Grosgrain reinforcements. All perimeter tie-outs and grommet tabs have a grosgrain reinforcement. This helps to strengthen the tent fabric in high stress areas where the fabric is under excessive tension or areas with bar tacks.

Low stress doors. SlingFin designs its doors differently than other tent companies. We modify the door patterns so there is extra fabric on the inner portion of the door. This reduces zipper slider and zipper chain stress when the tent is dry and extra taught. This may make the door look slightly loose while the tent is in humid environments but the loss of aesthetics is minor as compared to the functionality, ease of use and durability one gets with the low stress door design.

Titanium Dioxide window covers. (BFD, LFT, START HOUSE, High & Mighty). All clear windows on SlingFin tents, made with ET70 fabric, have a window cover made of ET70. While our clear window film is very durable it is not as UV resistant as ET70.

WebTruss™. Designed to make any tent stronger and easier to set up. Please see the image and extended description of the Web Truss for more information. Please click here.

Reflective Guy Outs. All guy-out loops have a reflective strip.

Grommet tab guides for tents with different pole lengths. The BFD has 15 poles with 3 different lengths. The LFD has 10 poles with 2 different lengths. Each grommet tab is labeled S (short) M 9 (medium) or L for (long) to make pitching these tents easier than ever. If the poles are all the same length then there are no pole size labels (START HOUSE, High & Mighty and the OneUp).

Reflective sleeve openings on WebTruss™. All WebTruss™ sleeve openings have a reflective strip of grosgrain which makes pitching your tent in the dark easier than ever.

Tent tube. All SlingFin tents are equipped with Easton® Expedition grade 7075-T9 tent tube. Easton aluminum tent tube is hard anodized and has the highest yield strength available in the industry. For more detailed information on Easton tent poles Please click here.

Back Tacking and Bar Tacking. All stress points are reinforced with extra fabric or grosgrain and sewn with a bar tack or reinforced by back tacking the stress area. Back tacks are most commonly applied to stress areas that would be damaged by a bar tack machine.