In this episode of the Primitive Camping & Bushcraft Podcast, Chris Speir dives into the history, versatility, and practicality of using tarps in the outdoors, sharing personal experiences with different brands and DIY waterproofing methods. He highlights the essential role of tarps for shelter building, water collection, and durable outdoor protection, while promising a deep dive into tarp configurations in upcoming episodes.
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Welcome back to the Primitive
Camping in Bushcraft Podcast.
My name is Chris Speir and I'm going to
be your guide to
enjoying the great outdoors.
So today we're going to discuss one of
the most essential
tools that you can take with
you into the woods for
shelter and the tarp.
I have used a double D
three by three for years.
Actually, I've had several of them.
After a while, using them as heavily as I
do, they start
punching holes in them, stuff
like that.
I throw firewood on my tarp, drag it
through the woods like a
silly person would, but I've
done that before gathering my firewood
and eventually you're
going to poke holes through
it.
It's not designed for that.
The double D tarp system is specifically
made for hanging on a
ridge line or for just
making a shelter, an A-frame, lean to all
these different various kinds.
So what we're going to do today is we're
going to talk about that.
A tarp originated,
they've used tarp for years.
As soon as they started weaving stuff
together, they've used tarp
as tents and combined them
with oils to make them lighter.
During the Civil War, they
had oil cloth revolutionary war.
They had oil cloth tents
and it was very lightweight.
They could carry it.
They could do whatever they got to do.
Tarp are historically used to cover goods
or stuff whenever
they're ferrying over sea,
whenever they're covering, keeping sea
water and salt water off
of your gear and off of
all your cargo that you're transporting
from one place to the other.
It worked for that and
that's what they used it for.
What they do is they would cover a canvas
like a drop cloth that we have today.
That would probably be one of the closest
resemblances of what
I'm trying to talk about.
But this drop cloth thing
would be covered in tar.
That tar would repel the sea water and
keep everything waterproof
inside there, keep everything
dry.
So canvas sheets coated with tar was one
of the first variations
of a tarp in my research
and studies.
Eventually evolving into lightweight
waterproof tarps that we use today.
They've used tarps for tents
for shelters for a long time.
I can't even put a time
period on it, but good stuff.
So tarps and everything are great,
especially if you're using
like a double D. What's the
name of it?
East Ridge.
East Ridge tarps makes a good one.
I have one of those.
The problem with that tarp is that they
make a seam down the
middle of the tarp and when
it starts raining, eventually it starts
leaking on that seam.
So you're going to have to do some
waterproofing or something on that seam.
But that was a cheap, cheap alternative.
When I first started getting gear and
stuff like that and I was
like, man, I ain't paying
$75 for a tarp.
At least I did.
I had to save 30-something bucks if I
just went ahead and bought the $75 tarp.
But I think it's East
Ridge or something like that.
I have that tarp up in the woods right
now covering a hammock
in the woods at a little
campsite that I set up.
That's been a little good tarp.
It has actually set
up for nine months now.
It's been set up and during the
hurricane, it actually tore
one of the grommets out and
that's it.
That's all the damage.
It actually lasted a pretty good time.
But the double D three by three is, I
mean, it's got so many
attachment points that it's
perfect for setting up in A frames.
It's perfect for setting up in various
other configurations that
once this other one goes
out, I'm going to go
ahead and order another one.
This will be my third one.
It will be my third one.
Like I said, I'm tough on a tarp.
I'm rough on a tarp.
I just bunch that puppy up.
I just shove it in the bag and throw it
in there and then I
throw firewood and leaves
and all kinds of stuff on
it, drag it through the woods.
So punctures holes in
it, stuff like that.
Modern tarp can range from a few dollars
to a few hundred
depending on the material and
the quality.
Now when I'm talking about a modern tarp,
I'm not talking about
running down a Harbor
Freight and buying one of it.
I mean, there's nothing wrong with that,
but that's not the kind
that you're going to be
using in a backpack.
The big thick heavy duty tarps that they
make at Harbor Freight, they're great.
They will suffice.
The grommets come out a lot.
The tarp edges will tear.
The wind will actually ripple the shreds
and these are the heavy duty ones.
Over time, I'm not talking
about upfront and blunt with it.
I'm just talking about over time.
But these tarps, man, I'm telling you
right now, these tarps are heavy.
They're extremely heavy.
If you get one that is, let's say nine
by, I think, tarps
are made in weird sizes.
I mean, I don't know who in the world
come up with the sizes for
tarps and I don't understand
why.
I don't know.
And maybe I'm missing something.
If I'm missing
something, leave me a comment.
Let me know.
Get in touch with me and let me know if
I'm missing the reason
why tarps were designed
the way modern tarps are designed because
they are very oddball shaped.
They're oddballed
dimensions and they really...
I don't know what the purpose is.
I don't know if it's to
secure loads, to cover loads.
I don't know if it is an oddball shape or
dimension for some reason or not.
So if there is, get in touch with me.
Let me know and hook me
up with some knowledge.
But anyway, modern day
tarps at Harbor Freight are...
They have some canvas
ones that are pretty good.
I've had a canvas tarp hung up in the
woods for a long time, but
like I said, the grommets
get pulled out.
I've used that tarp for several things
and I ended up taking
it and cutting it apart
and using the canvas strips to make a bag
and kind of like a
millbait bag type deal.
It worked pretty good.
The problem with it was I could not get
my seam sewn tight
enough for some reason.
I don't understand.
I was hand sewing it so I don't have a
sewing machine, but then
that's probably all while.
But anyway, the
canvas bag is pretty cool.
The canvas tarps are pretty cool, but
they're heavy weight.
Now if you've seen any of my videos, I
have a video out there
about how to make a bed
sheet waterproof.
Night Hawk in Light is the name of the
guy that does a YouTube
channel and he demonstrated
this on his channel.
I looked at it one day and I was like,
"You know, I'm going to try
that to see if it actually
works.
I'm really going to do it."
So I filmed it as I was doing it and I
gave the dude credit.
I mean, he's a great channel.
He does all kinds of science experiments
and stuff like that.
So if you haven't checked it out, check
out Night Hawk in Light.
He does some real good stuff
and he's got a huge channel.
But he did this video on how to make a
tarp out of a bed
sheet using some naptha.
Naptha is kind of like a mineral spirit.
It's more potent than
mineral spirits and some silicone.
And that silicone and naptha, you combine
those two ingredients
and the naptha dissolves
the silicone and then you take the sheet
and you saturate it
inside this substance and
this dissolved silicone.
You hang it up and you let it dry.
And whenever you do, you have completely
waterproofed a cotton bed sheet.
It'll work for canvas.
It'll work for cotton.
And I'm not so sure about certain nylons
or not because I don't
know if the naptha would
dissolve the nylon.
But in the course of making
this video, I did two bed sheets.
I did one to see how it
worked and then I did one to film.
That way while I was hanging one up to
dry, I could actually
demonstrate the other one
to use and it went pretty good.
You pour water in it, it holds water.
It will actually hold water.
You can actually transport
water inside of a bed sheet.
You can hold it, fill it
up and it will hold it.
100% legit.
I mean, this thing was amazing.
So I did that video and to give credit to
that Nighthawk and
Light, the dude, that was
the most amazing science
experiment I've ever seen.
And I never heard of it until then.
But whenever I did that and followed
along his ingredients,
it's kind of like, if you
want to do this, do
this, blah, blah, blah.
I gave him credit.
He actually commented on the YouTube page
in the comment section, so I pinned it on
that video.
But you can give him
credit to whoever credits do.
But anyway, that tarp,
I have used it forever.
Matter of fact, I think it's in my
camping, some of my
camping stuff up in the attic.
I have one that it just got ripped shreds
from a hurricane or a bad wind storm.
And then the other one is just folded up
nice and neat in my attic.
And it's been exposed to heat and it
still is waterproof to this day.
And it's a great tarp.
Now, with that being said, people's like,
"Why don't you just buy an oil tarp or an
oil cloth or an oil skin tarp?"
And I'm like, "Man, because some of those
dudes are $250 when I
can go buy a bed sheet
from a thrift store for cheap, a king
size bed sheet for 10 or 12 bucks.
I think a silicone for three
bucks, five bucks, whatever.
I don't know how much it is now."
Then I could get some naptha.
And then you take that naptha and you
dissolve the silicone.
You put your bed sheet in there and you
hang it up and you got
yourself a 80 something
by 80 something inch, 83 by 83, I think
is what a king size comes out to be.
But if you did that 83 by 83, that's a
big old tarp and you
hang that dude up and it
dries out and you got yourself a nice
little A-frame shelter.
You know, it's very lightweight.
I mean extremely lightweight.
And it doesn't have that
oily feel or that oily smell.
It doesn't get all over your gear and it
is not very...it's
kind of fire retardant.
I guess because the silicone makes it to
where it's a little fire retardant.
So it's a pretty cool little experiment.
It's a pretty cool thing.
So if you're looking into something like
that, the only downfall
is the grommets or tie outs
or whatever.
They don't have any.
So you have to use like an acorn or a
piece of dirt or
something put up in there and then
tie it around.
There's a video on that too, so check out
my YouTube pages on all that stuff.
So, but anyway, tarp's are lightweight,
waterproof, multi-use and
they serve various purposes
from shelter to water collection.
Tarp's are
instrumental in water collection.
Tarp's if you set your shelter up, you
can also use that to collect your water.
And once the rain...once it starts
raining, the rain drips
off of your shelter, you just
set it up to where you
can collect that water.
I've done that several times
camping and it works great.
It works great and I've
never had a problem with that.
Now, excuse me, and there's a lot of
people out there that
will argue with you until you
are blue in the face or they are blue in
the face, whatever
you want to call it, but
about PFAS or forever chemicals.
And yes, I agree.
That's an issue.
I don't believe it's a
government conspiracy.
I don't, you know, there's a lot of
people out there in the extreme
conservative far right
that is just like, whoa, everything's a
government conspiracy.
And it swings both ways.
I'm not here to do politics by any means,
but you know, that
people's argument is that
you can't drink the rainwater.
Well, that's a government restriction.
They don't want you to drink the
rainwater because they want
you to depend on them, you
know?
So they put out all these notices.
Yes, there may be, but
here's the problem with that.
And I doubled down on that in the book is
that if the rain is
contaminated with forever
chemicals, then all the water on earth is
contaminated with forever chemicals.
So why would it be safer to drink the
stuff that they process
to give you with all the
chemicals in it than to
collect the rainwater?
You know, that's food for thought.
And you just think about that, take it
whatever way you want.
But anyway, that's
just my opinion on that.
And I'm just here to give you my opinion,
not that it is valued
or anything like that.
But you know, I personally, whenever I
head out into the
woods, I never head out into
the woods without a tarp.
It doesn't matter if I have a tent.
Last week we talked
about hammocks and tents.
And you know, it's a good idea to have
either one for your shelter.
Sometimes I've done it without, you know,
I've just a bed, a blow up mattress, like
you know, a little
sleeping pad and a tarp.
And I've slept on it like that.
And that is perfectly fine.
That is a shelter and a bed.
And you know, there's
nothing wrong with it.
So but sometimes a lot of people will put
a tarp above their tent.
That way, you know, if it rains, they
don't get water in their
tent, you know, stuff like
that.
So whenever I venture out, I
always, always have a tarp.
Let me know your thoughts.
I mean, do you always take a tarp with
you whenever you head out into the woods?
Hmm.
So I mean, you guys should be able to
leave some comments or
whatever if you listen to
this podcast.
I know you can if you're
listening to the video.
And it's not like
anybody watches the video.
And the average watch time is like two
minutes and 30 seconds on these videos.
And actually, I've actually thought about
cutting the videos out
just doing the podcast,
but I don't know.
We'll see.
So I frequently use the double D3 by 3 or
DD3 by 3, which means 3 meters or 9.84 by
9.84 feet.
And this tarp has 19 attachment points
and it's fully weather
sealed and it's double
stitched making it a robust for camping.
Now these attachment points are great if
you want to do different configurations.
So starting in the next podcast, we're
going to start going
through different configurations
for tarps.
And it's pretty cool.
You know, you could do the A-frame, you
could do the lean to, you
could do the Adirondack,
you could do the diamond
fly, you know, stuff like that.
You could do the plow point.
And those are just the easy ones.
You could do five shelters with a tarp
and you can camp the
rest of your life with just
those five shelters.
Now the reason I use that double D3 by 3
is simply because of
the attachment points.
I mean, it's already on there.
I don't have to tie an acorn or a rock or
some dirt into a corner
and then loop it around
and use that as an attachment point.
And if you don't know what I'm talking
about, go to spare
outdoors on YouTube and check
that video out.
So now once you get out there, you're
going to be setting up a ridge line.
And a ridge line is the highest point of
your shelter, similar
to the top ridge of your
house.
So if you've looked at the rafters and
everything on your house,
you know, it's got your ridge.
That's what it's called, the ridge.
And that is going to be where all the
rafters join in and then
it's like the backbone.
And then you have all the rest of your
skeleton or your ribs or
whatnot attached to it.
And so that ridge line is what we're
going to use to set up our shelter.
And you're going to do
it between two trees.
One end you'll...
I like using the overhand loop knot and a
press... or a toggle.
And then on the other
end, doing a trucker stitch.
It's the easiest and
the most effective way.
And then, you know, get
it real nice and tight.
Use a couple of
prusik knots, prusik loops.
And then on each end of your tarp, you
just feed another toggle through it.
You could tighten that puppy down and
it's not going anywhere.
It's not going...
It's not going to fly away or fall apart.
And then, you know, once you start
getting that thing
set up, then you can...
From there, depending on the type of
shelter you want, you
know, if you got an A-frame
and you're hanging a hammock underneath
it, you know, obviously
you're going to have your
ridge line higher.
And if you're doing a lean-to, you're
going to do it a little bit lower.
If you're doing a modified lean-to or
whatever, you know, where
you have this little part
coming over, you know, like a roof.
So if it starts raining, you don't get
rained on, you know, you can do that.
There's no problem with that.
So...
But I like to run.
I like to do the lean-to.
That's my favorite way to go.
Unless I am doing, you know, a hammock,
then I always do an A-frame.
Now they say that the Diamond Fly gives
you a little bit more
coverage, and it does, you
know.
It's like hanging the tarp,
you know, in a diagonal fashion.
It gives you a little bit more coverage,
but I just do a typical
A-frame, you know, style.
Flying A-frame, they
call it, or whatever.
It is raised up real
high with the tie-outs.
So you know, toggles are extremely
important in this whole
process, and all a toggle is
is a little piece of wood.
And for those of you that don't know, you
know, this is mainly
geared for the people
that don't really know, but a toggle is
about a piece of wood,
about two inches, three inches
long.
And you know, you can run your prusik
knot, stick them through
there, and stick them through
your attachment points, then put a toggle
through there, that
piece of wood in there,
and then it will hold it right there.
So should be good to go.
My camera died over here for some reason.
There we go.
We're back online.
So, but anyway, then
you have your guy lines.
Guy lines are essential to adjusting the
tarp's coverage based on the weather.
So you can raise it out, you know, if
you're doing an A-frame,
you can let it raise it
up and down.
You can do the wings lower, rings higher,
it depends on whatever you want to do.
And then you carve your tent stakes out
of sticks that have
fallen, died, and fallen
off the tree branches, and do those do's,
or you can tie your tie-outs to a sapling
or a tree or whatever
is nearby, you know.
Now going back, taking a couple steps
back, you know, prusik
knots, prusik knots allow
for adjusting tension
along your ridge line.
Now prusik knots are very important on
this process because
you're going to, you know,
you're going to make a little loop and
then you're going to
tie your prusik knot.
Now cover the knots, how to
tie those knots in the book.
But on each end, and I talked about it
briefly just a second
ago, but that is the simplest
way to attach a ridge tarp to a ridge
line because it's not
going to slide back and forth.
It holds the tension.
Once you put tension on
it, it holds in its place.
It's not going to slide, it's not going
to move until you let the tension off.
And so whenever you put that prusik knot
through and put that
toggle in there and you just
tighten that puppy up, there you go.
Your tarp's stuck there, it's not going
to move, it's not
going to sway in the rain.
So tent stakes, sounds silly, but some
people prefer to carry them with you.
Some people prefer to make
them when they get out there.
Me, you know, whenever I'm arriving at a
campsite late, I prefer to
have them with me, you know,
because I don't want to be rummaging
through the woods at night
trying to find sticks and
stuff like that, but you
know, two eats their own.
But you know, this little thing about
tarts, we're going to
dive real deep into it next
time.
I know I say that all the time.
Somebody commented on one of my last
video and said, "You
lied in this video twice."
And I was like, "What do you mean?"
And it really hurt me, you know, because
I was like, "I didn't lie.
I didn't lie.
I didn't lie at all."
And they said, "No, you lied because you
never dived into anything."
I was like, "Man."
So whatever.
But anyway, the next video, we're going
to get into different
aspects of shelters with
the tarp, like how to
hang these certain shelters.
And then after that, we will get into the
next chapter in the book.
So all right.
So that's it.
You know, tarps are versatile to recap,
you know, a double D three by three.
And I highly recommend that.
I mean, there may be
other ones out there.
If so, leave me a comment.
Let me know which one is better.
But so far, you know, 10, 12 years into
this, I have never
found one better than the DD
three by three, you know, for the price.
I'm not paying $250 for an oil cloth.
I'm not going to do it.
It's just not going to happen.
I'll pay $75 for a tarp.
And if that one goes
bad, I'll pay another $75.
But as far as versatility and lightness,
you know, you're
practically not going to beat
it for the price.
And if you need to, you can get you to,
you know, that's just
the way I feel about it.
So but anyway, next video, like I said,
we're going to go ahead and
start setting up different
shelters, hooking them up.
And I'm actually thinking about doing
that podcast out in the
woods and doing the live
video, doing a live demonstration.
And that way we have real tactile what's
going on, you know, so we shall see.
But anyway, all right,
guys, thank you so much for.
And joining me on this video and this
podcast, and I can't
wait to see you guys again.
I really appreciate your support.
Don't forget Swing by Amazon.
They're 14 bucks right now.
14 and change.
Whatever.
You know, they're pick up your copy of
Primitive Camping and Bushcraft.
Yeah, got some big stuff in the
development with this book,
and we're going to be working
on that and I'll be letting you guys know
first because you're
on the podcast and then
we'll start announcing it to all the
video that's coming up in the works.
So hey, I appreciate you.
Thank you so much.
I'll see you next time.