Bushwalk Australia

Anybody here have any experience with sewing Kevlar??

I just found a section in the garage I had forgotten about.
It is the loosely woven stuff for epoxy resin use but I figure I can use it for a stove flap if I silicon it heavily.

I figure if I can do this I'll run the stove flue up to the peak of the tipi and use the new pole to help the flues stability and I will use the Kevlar for its strength in the peak at the same time, I think for 3 sections of the hexagon

i'd juset test how much force it takes to put a normal sewing needle through it first , to make sure it doesnt break your sewing machine needles.

Sews easily enough by hand as it is a very loose weave but I haven't yet tried it on the machine. I need to buy a new tool to cut it with.

see what happens when you try putting the nedle directly through the fibre, the sewing machine is bound to hit the fibres directly

Actually I thought that the needle point was designed to go between the fibers. I'll set the machine up soon and give a scrap a try-out.

A ball point needle will roll off the fibres while a standard sharp point will tend to pierce. A ball point is all you would need I imagine, although make it a sturdy one I guess.

You mean the yellow square woven cloth? Cant see why it wouldn't sew, it wont be under pressure as a stove port I guess. You can get rovings to sew it too itself.

I cut up a fire blanket for a stove jack many moons ago, the cloth ended up saggy iirc, guess ridiculously heavy for tent weight polyester. I hand sewed it most likely. Cut up some bbq liner last year for stove bases and thought it would be worth a try as a stove jack if it would glue (to cuben fibre in that case). Doubt anything would glue teflon.. anyhow, getting off topic- Let us know if the Kevlar sews ok, don't see why not, parting the fibres sounds right. Is it waterproof on its own?

No Nuts it's an open weave Kevlar meant for making boats/canoes/kayaks with. I would use high temperature or plumbers silicon for the waterproofing and to stop it fraying if I miss a few threads.
At this stage I only mean to waterproof the outer cap and leave the inner part uncoated to allow the tent to "Breath" a little.
All the better tipis and lavvus seem to use a central flue. Hand sewing around the flue hole would be easy enough. A machine stitch would be stronger than my hand sewing. This is an instance where I will be making an accurate template from stiff cardboard and checking things at least 3 times before stitching

Sews easily, actually sews better with a smaller needle too, I'm using a # 12 not the usual #18 I use on canvas. My beloved has some teflon coated ball points in her sewing kit and later I'll try one of those to see if there is any real difference